Increases – What Really Happened?
CCN Online Reporting
A Facebook post currently circulating claims that Minister of Correctional Services Pieter Groenewald rejected a salary increase of more than R100,000 earlier this year, while President Cyril Ramaphosa approved increases for himself and members of Cabinet.
CCN Online checked the available official records.
On 20 January 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a 3.8% salary increase for Members of the National Executive, Members of Parliament and members of provincial legislatures, effective from 1 April 2026. The Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office-Bearers had recommended a 4.1% increase. (South African Government)
The official remuneration determination shows that a minister’s annual remuneration package was R2,792,155 for the applicable 2025/26 period. Media reports calculated that the approved increase would add more than R100,000 a year to the remuneration of a minister. (EWN)
However, CCN Online has not yet independently confirmed the specific claim that Minister Pieter Groenewald personally rejected an increase of more than R100,000.
CCN Online therefore asks:
- Did Minister Pieter Groenewald formally decline the 2026 salary increase?
- If so, was his decision made in writing, and can the document be made available to the public?
- Did the Minister decline the entire increase, or only the additional amount payable to him personally?
- If he declined the increase, where was the money allocated instead?
- Did other members of Cabinet also decline their increases?
- Was President Cyril Ramaphosa’s own remuneration increase determined through the same statutory process?
- What is the President’s current annual remuneration following the approved increase?
- How much additional expenditure will the approved increases represent for the national fiscus?
- Were the increases implemented automatically, or did individual office-bearers have an opportunity to decline them?
- Given the country’s economic pressures, what consideration was given to the affordability of these increases?
The official record is clear that a 3.8% increase was approved. The unanswered question for CCN Online is whether the widely circulated claim about Minister Groenewald personally rejecting his increase is also supported by documentary evidence.
CCN Online will be asking for that evidence before presenting the claim as fact.
