The Outlier and GroundUp analysed the pay inequality at 35 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and found that, on average, top managers earn about 14x as much as the lowest-paid employees.

These SOEs were the ones which reported their pay structures by salary band: unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled, professionally qualified, senior management, and top management.

We found seven entities with an above-average gap between the lowest and highest number of employees. These are not the entities with the highest top salaries; they are those with the highest income inequality between employees.

The CEO at the SA Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates the aviation sector, earned R9.7-million on average in 2024/25. That’s 93x the average annual salary of the 102 workers in the lowest salary band, which was R104,000.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation’s CEO was paid R7.7-million, almost 3x what those in the next highest salary scale earned on average (R2.7-million), and 53x the average pay of the lowest salary band (R143k).

The vast majority of the entity’s 1,706 employees are semi-skilled and earned R240,000 on average.

Read the full GroundUp article here.