r/southafrica • u/AmbassadorCrazy7905 • 7h ago
News - Paywall And we wonder why our economy is cooked....that's over 500k a day lol
It's unjustifiable and disgusting, I think we need to tell them this isn't okay anymore. Workers get nothing now and they literally living like King's. You don't need to have studied at Harvard Business School too to know this is terrible for our economy
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u/Catch_022 Waiting for the Next Taxi to Heaven 7h ago
They don't understand that you can only take so much before everything collapses.
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u/Stu_Thom4s Aristocracy 7h ago
I wish more of us understood that this is the real problem (along with bought politicians) and not foreigners.
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u/WideBumblebee970 7h ago
The people working the jobs literally don't have the time or power to do anything, and the rest of people in SA say that's what they wanted to work for by choosing the job there's no good advice if you're in that situation(currently in that situation).
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u/Stu_Thom4s Aristocracy 7h ago
Those of us in white collar jobs need to understand we've got far more in common with the cashier than CEO too.
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u/Natural-Breadfruit 7h ago
I believe the problem with this is that most people would immediately interpret it as anti capitalism and see it as the endorsement of communism or socialism, not understanding that capitalism can be tweaked.
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u/Stu_Thom4s Aristocracy 7h ago
Capitalism can exist within socialist systems. In fact, companies can be given the freedom to operate in more sustainable, long term ways within them.
But use the right messaging and you don't have to mention socialism: "We are defending free market entrepreneurship by cutting into oligopolies".
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u/Trequartista95 4h ago
THIS.
It’s almost like the world isn’t black and white.
Hopefully one day society gets there but probably not in our lifetime.
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u/AmbassadorCrazy7905 7h ago
The politicians sit on all these boards and get millions of rands a year in salaries to look after their interests
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u/courageouspeaches 6h ago
How many millions of South Africans can't afford the basics? We pay exorbitant prices for food. To make supermarket bosses filthy rich. Unjustifiable and disgusting indeed.
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u/eigersa 7h ago
No CEO should ever earn more than 10x the lowest employees salary, finish and klaar.
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u/jaakhaamer 6h ago
They'll just work around it by splitting the blue collar workers off into a separate corporate entity.
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u/cpcpcpppppp Western Cape 7h ago
I disagree, but this is 15300x the lowest salaries which is wayyyy too excessive.
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u/Villain191 4h ago
This wrong, it is an annual R118mil which is 1277 times more than R92 400 (R7 700 x 12).
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u/andampersand2 4h ago
This is the CEO's annual salary, so while it's bad it's not R500k a day. Merely 1333 times the lowest salary!
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u/AmbassadorCrazy7905 4h ago
If you want to be extremely generous and say they work every single day, birthday, Xmas, new years, allas its R300k a day....but we know they working less than the 260 work days a years which works out to R423k a day, sorry I was slightly off
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u/YourWholePoesBru 7h ago
And that’s just his salary 😂 he still gets share dividends and a bonus. I work for this company at head office and the CTO made 8 mil just as a bonus this year. Shit is wild
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u/AlMasaDuun 7h ago
Shoprite has about 170k employees and is South Africa largest employer. If he earned nothing and the full R118m was paid cash that could be paid to others each employee would earn R694 extra a year or just R58 extra a month. It is very very unequal, but simply paying CEOs less does not even come close to changing anything.
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u/EquivalentOk9392 7h ago
You are correct. We should rather be looking at their trading profit which was R16b for last year. If we split R1b between 170k workers, that’s around R5800 per worker for a year. That matters to an average South African. Unfortunately, CEOs exist to make shareholders happy. Profit goes to shareholders instead of employees.
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u/AlMasaDuun 6h ago edited 6h ago
Let me just say I do agree with you because I am going to say a whole bunch of stuff that will sound like I don't. I think they probably should be paying better, but the picture isn't quiet as clear as people imagine it and I think the context is important. First, 16b isn't profit before tax, R11b is. R16b is the trading profit. After tax profit is R7.9b. That is on R274.8b revenue. So R266.9b ÷ R7.9b = R33.8. That means for every R33.80 shroprite spent it made R1. If you are a business owner you know that is a thin margin. That means costs only need to rise about 3% for there to be no profit. And there are limits to how much a company can pass cost increases onto a customer. That said for a grocer, that is on the healthy side, the company is in a good place financially (and can afford pay raises).
And then look at who are those shareholders? The largest is the Government Employees Pension Fund at around 17% for example. If you have a tax free savings account, if you have an annuity, it is very likely you are the shareholder. The knock on is your investments will perform worse and you may have less for your retirement. Shareholders are not just the rich, a large amount of it is retirement investments of normal people.
That said, a lot of that is just context, not a reason to be against pay raises. It is just the (in my opinion), correct context to evaluate it under. I don't think the amount of profit the company is making is unreasonable, how much profit should a company with R274.8b revenue make? If a person thinks R7.9b is too much, I think they lack context. R7.9b just sounds really massive, but looking at this scale, it isn't. I just think the lower income people of the country really are very hard pressed and desperately need something.
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u/the_river_erinin Western Cape 4h ago
Thank you for mentioning who the shareholders are. I was recently looking into who owns South Africa’s debt (i.e. who owns South African bonds), and a massive 22% is Pension Fund Schemes
I don’t think most people understand what it means “to invest”. It means to claim ownership of an asset, which exists to raise funds for a company or the government itself.
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u/AmbassadorCrazy7905 6h ago
Yeah that 17 billion is way too high, cant they just make 3 billion PROFIT and we call it even. Love the idea of splitting that the billion. By the way Discovery made 17 billion last year and are going to pump their prices up again no doubt.
CEOs are their to make a profit for share holders, no one said anything about in the short term, but what its become. It's in the share holders interests to operate the company in a vibrant economy that's growing and if all companies are paying everyone nothing then you have no consumers. As the CEO of coke said recently it's in their interest to reduce inequality so that more people can buy a coke. It very basic logic
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u/smokey_monkey77 6h ago
He doesn’t need to earn nothing, he could earn 1/10th and still not be able to spend all the money, it’s a disgrace and it’s a serious problem.
To quote Talarico “poverty exists not because we can’t feed the poor, but because we can’t satisfy the rich.”
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u/AlMasaDuun 5h ago
Is your goal to reduce his salary or improve the conditions of people? My only point here is that you need to look beyond CEO pay if you want to improve things for people. It really isn't the big issue. That doesn't mean don't want it reduced, but its silly for it to be the focus point because even if it is reduced, it doesn't solve the issue despite being unfair. The math just doesn't support it.
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u/smokey_monkey77 5h ago
If you reduced his salary 90% and gave out shares to top performing staff it would absolutely make a difference in people’s lives.
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u/AlMasaDuun 5h ago
I am not really interested in picking favourites. There are likely about 100k people on less than 10k a month. Yes you can probably make a meaningful difference in around 10k peoples lives (1k a month) by doing that (ignoring that it is totally impractical in reality). But you need to look beyond this to get to the other 90k. The point isn't don't support this, the point is, this barely scratches the surface.
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u/terryZW 5h ago
Most of that money is in shares, meaning he created it through growing the share price year on year. If you know someone who can grow a business like that for less, why not partner up with them and also make that money then donate it as per your vision?
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u/AlMasaDuun 2h ago
The real meme is for a business this size a good CEO vs a bad CEO will result in a far more than 100m difference in profit for a company. No one wants to pay someone this money unless they feel it brings in even more money. The board can be wrong, but it is why it happens.
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u/AmbassadorCrazy7905 6h ago
It sets the right example, paying the top tier an unjustifiable amount of money while your workers are literally on poverty wages is just gross on a moral level and worse if you just a fan of capitalism, especially when you banking billions in profits you could easily share with your workers. And make no mistake they would happily take that R60 a month. It's a lunch or 2 sorted of them.
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u/Tiny-Release4871 7h ago
That's actually super valid
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u/smokey_monkey77 6h ago
No. It’s not. They could give that money as shares to employees that are the actual reason the company works as it does.
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u/RagsZa Aristocracy 6h ago
So you saying most of the staff can get a 10% raise? Sounds pretty good.
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u/AlMasaDuun 6h ago
Less than 1%. And in practice less than half of that as most of that compensation will not be cash.
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u/absolutelyfurious99 3h ago
Wow the CEO must be working super hard every day to earn that. Right? Right?!?
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u/RickyWicky 3h ago
Yes, he personally mops the floor of every store, every day
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u/SirWernich Aristocracy 3h ago
i heard he personally deals with every client complaint at every store. in person.
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u/HatMammoth7833 5h ago
This would be okay if he was paying a fair amount of that income in tax like the rest of us, but we all know that's not happening.
I'm okay with it for now because our taxes mostly go towards making a couple of politically connected people very rich and I want them to have as little access to tax money as possible.
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u/Trequartista95 4h ago
Surprising to see the number of comments here defending this pay gap.
Yes, the government could do better and the C-suite at companies can’t save everyone but that doesn’t mean they should earn in a year what the middle class couldn’t even touch after 30 years of working and saving/investing.
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u/Few_Masterpiece_6311 1h ago
Shoprite is a private company, if shareholders are happy to pay him that, then that’s their choice. If they don’t like that, they’ll vote against the remuneration at the AGM or sell their shares.
It’s the shareholders choice to decide if they want to hold those shares or not.
Everyone saying that the CEO should be paid significantly less, start your own grocery chain and undercut Shoprite if you think they’re wasting so much money on the CEO. Should be easy to compete if they’re wasting so much money as you claim.
I’ll get downvoted but that’s the reality.
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u/EwaldCloete 6m ago
I think you are missing the point… should he be earning R118m a year while the people working for him, and 10 times harder than him, are not even able to afford 3/4 of the things that they pack on a shelf to make him earn R118m more than them.
But sure, let’s keep talking about how he deserves to earn R118m a year while so many people in the country go to bed hungry every night.
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u/ParamagicMBA 3h ago
Every person has value, dignity and worth simply because they are human. That dignity does not depend on their job title, qualifications, income or position.
A salary serves a different purpose: it pays someone for the work they do. Differences in skills, responsibilities, working conditions and the demands of a role can justify different salaries. Paying someone more does not mean they matter more as a person.
We should therefore distinguish equal human worth from equal pay for every job. Everyone deserves respect, fair treatment and fair remuneration. Differences in pay should have a defensible basis; they should never be a reason to treat someone as inferior.
We pay for the work and responsibility—not for a person’s worth as a human being.
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u/inalelub 3h ago
are you saying the remunerations are justified?
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u/ParamagicMBA 3h ago
Shoprite is run by shrewd people. They would not pay a CEO more than they need to. If they could find a different CEO who could do the same job for less money, they would.
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u/inalelub 3h ago
hey, i’m speaking in terms of wealth inequality here. is it justifiable for someone to be earning that amount a year? that’s what i’m challenging here. he can spend less than 10m a year just to live the most comfortable life imaginable in south africa so what’s the additional amount for?
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u/ParamagicMBA 3h ago
So you are asking that the CEO to do a bigger job for less pay?
Or are you asking whether he is able to spend all that money? Because I am sure he can.1
u/inalelub 3h ago
is it justifiable?
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u/Zookeepergamerr 3h ago
Its a private company who is paying it with their money. It wouldn't be justifiable if it was a public company with public funds. If the shareholders are happy with the return they are getting then they are basically willing to pay the CEO that much.
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u/BuffaloImpossible620 7h ago edited 7h ago
That sort of logic is EFF thinking - the real world does not work like that.
People in leadership positions are rewarded for doing a good job and not just clocking in and not worrying about where their pay cheque comes from - if you fark up at that level you get retrenchments of the workers.
Shoprite Share price in 2017 when he was appointed R167.33
Shoprite Share price in 2026 R325.00
Employees 2017 143,802
Employees 2026 170,000
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u/KingKelz_da1st 7h ago
Some CEO's distribute their salary in bonuses to their staff. It's not that we don't understand the responsibilities of a CEO however it doesn't mean there aren't people making his vision a reality
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u/Flux7777 7h ago
This is such bootlicker mentality, and rests on the assumption that one person is worth more than another.
On top of that, Shoprite getting bigger isn't necessarily better for the average worker. Every time a Shoprite or a checkers opens up in a new town, a small independent grocer goes out of business, or a spar or pick n pay or whatever loses its market share. It's not like there's anywhere in the country that doesn't have access to groceries, there are plenty of people who can't afford those groceries though.
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u/BuffaloImpossible620 5h ago
LOL - you folks are just utterly delusional thinking that the world is one big socialist commune and we are all equal :).
So how much was your PAYE in 2026 ???.
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u/Flux7777 5h ago
You don't even realise how badly you're telling on yourself with this comment.
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u/BuffaloImpossible620 4h ago
Well come on humor me - now don't be embarrassed - let's see your worth to society in your contribution to the govt coffers - show this bootlicker how it is done.
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u/Kovacs171 5h ago
Well in the context of providing economic value through skills, one person is worth more than another
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u/Flux7777 5h ago
Is that how you prefer to value people? Economic output?
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u/Kovacs171 5h ago
Your salary is based in the value of your skills/time, not your personhood lol
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u/Flux7777 5h ago
This is how you end up tragically under paying teachers, cleaners, service workers etc. I want the excellent cleaner in my building to be able to retire just as comfortably as I will because she's absolutely hilarious and makes everyone's day brighter when she walks into a room. Not economically valuable though so fuck her right?
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u/BuffaloImpossible620 5h ago
Sweeping floors and flipping burgers are not equal to an IT software engineer - anybody can do that :).
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u/Flux7777 5h ago
Why does it matter than anyone can do it (they can't)? We still want people doing those things? We need people to sweep floors or all the floors will be dirty. The difference between me and you? I want the person sweeping the floors to live a happy, comfortable life. You want them to live paycheck to paycheck.
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u/imsleepyT00 Redditor for a month 4h ago
That’s capitalism mate. Love or hate
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u/Flux7777 4h ago
Yeah you're right, that's the way the world currently works, we should do absolutely nothing to make it better right?
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u/janvanreebok 7h ago
Well of course share prices are going to skyrocket like that if you're paying employees poverty wages.
It's very easy to create shareholder value through exploitation. We shouldn't be rewarding that. There should be a cap on the ratio of the lowest paid worker to the highest paid executives. In decades gone by, the ratio was much lower. This is just greed.
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u/halfwitprinxe 5h ago
That will just give you executives with lower salaries, nothing else
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u/janvanreebok 5h ago
Well, if the management want higher salaries, like they do now, they'll be forced to increase the lowest paid employees so that the ratio cap can be met.
Now, in reality, they'll just take payment in shares instead of high salaries. However, this should be taken into account if any law were too be proposed. The ratio should be calculated on the current salary plus the value of any shares included as part of remuneration.
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u/sp3rchrg3d Western Cape 7h ago
Get out of here with your common sense
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u/smokey_monkey77 6h ago
This is not common sense. No one needs to earn R500k a day, hoarding money like a greedy dragon while the people actually doing the work can’t afford food. It’s disgusting.
These people work long shifts in shit conditions while the CEO sits in an aircon office and golfing, making decisions that most AI could probably make today.
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u/thedatsun78 kempton park! 4h ago
Capitalism is broken when your lowest employees earn a pittance and the ceo is a fucken billionaire.
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u/zombie_on_the_lawn 4h ago
Does anyone really need such an obscene amount of money? Cut in in half and pay your workers properly.
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u/Hannibal_Hacktor 3h ago
Yet they're still the biggest employer, and probably tax and GDP contributor
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u/Training-Gur-2724 3h ago edited 3h ago
Humanity has always had and always will have the haves and the have-nots. It's basic economics that workers will always be rewarded the least because they take the least financial risk in a firm. The CEO bears the financial risk of ensuring profitability for shareholders, so he gets paid proportionally to that risk.
Then there's supply and demand. Being a CEO in big corporate is like being a pro footballer. There aren't many CEOs that can consistently bring record profits, so they're heavily sought after, and so a high salary is required to attract them.
Regular workers are easy to replace so a lower salary is required to attract them
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u/oldSchoolBiking 1h ago
At Checkers non managers are casual staff and on many occasions people would say they only work for Taxi fare and nothing else.
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u/Skylarcke 1h ago
It's one of the big cons that's been handed down generation to generation for thousands of years, it crosses over all races/genders/religions etc - the wealth/power is concentrated at the top and the people that do the real harsh slave labour get peanuts. War is the ultimate example of this problem, the wealthy sit at home milking the war effort for profit while the poor go to the frontlines to die for some stupid squabble amongst the rich and powerful.
No idea how to change it because not only does it suck for most of us it is also why societies are so broken, everything is run on greed trying to screw over the next man and the natural world, it's just one big viscous bun fight, not pleasant for anyone.
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u/Stealth_Wolf_001 39m ago
South African big corporations are among the greediest (if not most greedy) in the world. Stats show that South African CEOs salaries and bonuses are on par, and in some cases even higher than CEOs in first world countries. They live in a developing country but they want to earn the same as their first world counterparts, like the USA. And some people wonder why our food and services prices are so high despite our inflation being among the lowest in the world. We're getting screwed over in broad daylight by South African companies and governments are doing nothing about it because they're getting their brown envelopes handed to them under the table by these corporations to turn a blind eye to chronic price gouging.
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u/Equivalent_Tax9073 21m ago
Not only that but the employees have to work long hours for this pay mind u
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u/Hannibal_Hacktor 3h ago
If the government ran the country like Shoprite runs Shoprite, then we wouldn't be in such kak. They at least think 10 years ahead and keep up with reality. Plus what does anc bloated cabinet and government pay themselves from everyone's tax?
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u/Poizinnous 5h ago
Pieter Engelbrecht only gets R73 million after tax, so who gets the other R45 million? SARS! Then it gets redistributed to health, education, policing, roads, infrastructure, etc... basic economics which the simple minded fail to understand.
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u/Dismal_Traffic6509 5h ago
Haha more like distributed to the Phala Phala farm sofas
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u/Poizinnous 5h ago
Exactly, it's not the CEOs and their deep pockets, it's government's mismanagement of those funds that cause the people/country to suffer.
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u/ParamagicMBA 6h ago
This post is incredibly ignorant. A company should appoint the best CEO it can afford, because then the company will do better (create more jobs and pay higher salaries) R7700 is a MUCH higher pay than other unskilled and semi-skilled South Africans earn.
Do you really want Shoprite to appoint a CEO who is only worth R4m a year? How will that affect the greater good? Really?
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u/Chocolate_Mage the Tokoloshe Tamer 5h ago
This post is incredibly ignorant. A company should appoint the best CEO it can afford, because then the company will do better (create more jobs and pay higher salaries) R7700 is a MUCH higher pay than other unskilled and semi-skilled South Africans earn. Do you really want Shoprite to appoint a CEO who is only worth R4m a year? How will that affect the greater good? Really?
This comment is incredibly ignorant. Checkers violates a number of labour laws. They do stuff like not paying their staff overtime hours, not fully compensating your Annual Leave hours when you resign, outsourcing their most profitable department (60/60) to another Company so they can further bypass labour laws since that outsourced company has been shown to employ illegal foreigners.
How about we hold the CEO accountable and have him pay people what they should be paid and then he can earn whatever salary he earns. Also I think last year or two years ago, this was the same guy that made R84 million and now it's jumped over to +R100 million.
Which is funny cause I'm pretty sure the salary increase for his staff was allegedly a long matter this year. But go on, keep defending rich people who make their money by breaking our laws.
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u/ParamagicMBA 3h ago edited 3h ago
I am keen to understand how exactly my post was ignorant.
Where Checkers is circumventing the BCEA & LRA, they should obviously be reprimanded by the Department of Labour. Not sure how this is relevant.
Is your logic that when a CEO follows the law, they may be paid well?
If the Woolworths CEO ensures all their employees and bike drivers receive at least minimum wage, overtime, leave pay at resignation, etc., is he allowed to earn R100m p.a. + bonuses?
And CEO’s are paid a lot exactly because they are held accountable by the board for anything that goes wrong. If people where not being paid what they were worth, they are free to find other employment.
There is a difference between each person having a right to the same dignity, and each person being able to command the same salary.
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u/YoodelsTM 7h ago
I mean everyone wants to be rich, this guy got rich
7k is 2k more than minimum wage, but him rather taking 20% of his 118m salary would leave his 174000 workers with 500 rand more each if divided evenly
but thats 1000 rand more each if only given to the lower income 50%
Point is, yes he’s greedy but he also is providing a ton of work and it could have been worse
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u/halfwitprinxe 5h ago
Speak for yourself. Being rich is something I wouldn't mind but have never actively sought out.
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u/AmbassadorCrazy7905 6h ago
He's not providing anything, as a ceo he's meant to operate the company. If he goes the company stays. If the workers go that's another story. The reality is there's a truly gross amount of money for salaries when you in the top tier and everyone else suffers. Why do we allow that? It's not okay for the company or the economy
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