The high salaries of executives made headlines recently when a few financial institutions in the United States paid their executives billions in bonuses with taxpayer bailout funds. This sparked debate surrounding executive salaries with US president Barack Obama supporting a pay cap of $500 000 a year for companies getting taxpayer bailout funds.<\/p>\n
The same issue also made headlines in Australia, but here a research report suggested that salary caps are not the answer to tackling excessive executive salaries, and that it would be “unworkable and have harmful economic impacts”.<\/p>\n
Locally high executive salaries are likely to remain a contentious issue, with workers and trade unions like Cosatu criticizing the high salaries of executives while ordinary workers often face retrenchments or low salary increases. Some people however argue that high executive salaries are needed to retain high level skills, something which will stand the country in good stead in future.<\/p>\n
Vodacom, MTN and Telkom executive salaries<\/strong><\/p>\n Telkom CEO Reuben September’s 2008 salary package of R 19 108 837 was widely criticized, but Telkom Chairman Shirley Lue Arnold defended this salary, arguing that a large part of September’s R19.1m pay package were one-time payments, including a restraint-of-trade agreement. September’s latest salary package dropped to R 12 827 648 – still a respectable remuneration in executive circles.<\/p>\n MTN CEO Phuthuma Nhleko is also not doing badly with a total salary package of R19.958-million, consisting of a basic salary of R6.5-million and a performance bonus of R 13-million. Over the last financial year hefty bonuses at MTN were at the order of the day with group finance director Rob Nisbet receiving a R5.75-million bonus and chief operating officer Sifiso Dabengwa awarded a bonus of R6.25-million.<\/p>\n At Vodacom some executive pay packages also exceeded R 10-million. Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys received a total pay package of R 10 468 444, consisting of a basic salary of R 4 910 000 and a performance bonus of R 5 550 000.<\/p>\n Vodacom SA MD Shameel Joosub however beats all executives in the telecoms space with a total remuneration of R 22 276 840. This included a basic salary of R 3 850 000, a performance bonus of R 8 286 735 and a restraint of trade payment of R 10 000 000.<\/p>\n