Ezulwini – The Ministry of Finance has signed a salary review agreement for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with Emergence Human Capital at a signing ceremony on Monday.
The ministry’s Principal Secretary, Vusie Dlamini, represented the government at the signing, while Emergence Human Capital was represented by its managing director, Raun Smythe at the Eswatini Revenue Service conference room. Chief executive officers and chief financial officers from several state-owned enterprises attended the gathering where they were briefed on the review assignment’s scope, objectives, and expected outcomes.
The government has over 48 parastatals to cover and efforts to ensure equitable, competitive, and sustainable remuneration practices across the SOE sector continue. 
There is yet to be implementation of the 85% balance of the public sector’s outstanding compensation review package for the 2025/26 implementation. The government paid out the initial 15%, which cost about E800 million of about E1.6 billion required to finalise the exercise.
The Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, has asked for patience from SOEs. He said this exercise is expected to take a period of six months and that it will strengthen governance and promote fairness and consistency in remuneration while enhancing the efficiency and long-term sustainability of SOEs.
“I can plead with you to still try and hold the fort and to try to keep peace in your entities until the exercise is done. We’ll definitely see what we can do as a government when the exercise is done to try and implement it (the salary review) as quickly as possible and to try and get that finalised,” he said.
The minister stated that after the salary review procedure is completed, the government will use discretion to execute it, guided by affordability.
“Affordability will always unfortunately have to play a factor here, but at the same time let’s at least know what the right pay is and what the right structures are so that we can all aim towards it.
The minister banked on the timing of finalising the new budget cycle by December, saying: “By the time we finalise the budget, we’ll have a good idea of what we need to try to assist with as a government, but I think the timing kind of works out quite well to make sure in the year 2027-2028 that we can really do something significant and have something in place.”
