THE recent salary and benefit protests, pickets and strikes by public officials, including the unfortunate march by armed forces, bear testimony to the ineffective system of lumping professionals and non-professionals into the same compensation structure.

It is documented that in order to compensate for professional and scarce skills, government has added a professional allowance to these posts, but they proved inadequate and dissatisfying.

Lumping professional and non-professional public officials into the same compensation structure is ineffective and has no incentive for professional s.

The result is that health professionals, teachers and other professionals go on strike if government is unable to meet their salary and benefit demands.

This withholding of labour is disruptive to service delivery and could lead to loss of confidence by citizens.

This unintended consequence is undesirable and may prove ghastly and negative for government.

De-linking the compensation system and structure of professional public servants and non-professionals will go a long way in minimising industrial action by professional public servants and heightening the level of confidence by citizens.

This will in turn heighten the morale of professionals and ensure effective, efficient and economic service delivery to our beautiful land.

Though satisfaction is relative, de-linking compensation systems and structures will go a long way in heightening the morale of professional public officials and this will auger well for service delivery in South Africa.

Tito Khalo, Atteridgeville