Minister Ebrahim Patel recently announced that the Department of Trade and Industry and Competition would shortly be finalising a new Bill to implement changes to the Companies Act. He stated the changes were aimed at tackling the “gross injustice of excessive pay”. Minister Patel announced that executive pay will be a required disclosure by companies together with improved governance related to executive pay and transparency on ownership and financial records.
In South Africa, for every rand an average worker is paid, the average CEO is paid 180 rands.
The Bill does not specify what the wage gap should be, but rather seeks to increase disclosure and thus transparency and debate, with the hope that this will drive the desired change.