Thank you, hon Deputy Speaker. The issue of the public service, we have some 1,2 million public servants. Our aim is to have one single public service that will include those people who work in local government, provincial government structures and obviously to join the ranks of the nurses, police and other civil servants that we have - our soldiers and all that.
Now if you were to talk to the Minister of Police, he will tell you that he is short of a couple of thousands of people who should be brought into the Police Service so that the objective that he has set himself out to achieve on behalf of the safety of all South Africans is
achieved. So, he has a shortfall in the men and women who should work in the police.
If you should talk to Minister of Health, Dr Mkhize, he will tell you that he needs more nurses and doctors because our population has grown, our hospitals need more of those health workers.
If you were to talk to a number of other people who work in the state sector, they will tell you that they need more warm bodies and more pairs of hands to do the work.
Right now as the Minister of Finance said the civil service wage takes about 46%. Now that indeed is a high figure. This has come about as a result of a number of things that have happened where we have had increases that are above inflation and where we have had other benefits that have accompanied all that. Now that needs to be looked at and we are going to be looking at that with labour because the more this grows the more we become constrained in as far as providing services to the people our country.
Now you want to know what we are going to do. What we are going to do is actually to have thorough going discussions with labour precisely about this situation that we are currently facing as a country so that all of us can be joined in our understanding of what it is and what needs to be done.
I believe that the leaders of our labour movement in our country are sensible people. They have an acute way of analysing situations and understanding situations. They will realise that indeed we have a serious challenge on our hands and we have to address it. We will find solutions as we have always found solutions on many other problems that looked intractable. So, we are going to be sitting down and negotiating with labour to address the situation that we find now. Thank you very much, hon Deputy Speaker. [Applause.]