Company refuses to disclose how much more the CEO earns than you
An employee at a listed company demands access to the wage gap ratio between executive pay and the lowest-paid workers, as legally required by the Companies Amendment Act.
Premiumintermediate8 minutes
The Situation
What They Said
“Under Section 30A of the Companies Amendment Act, this company is legally required to disclose the pay ratio between the highest-paid executive and the lowest-paid employee in its annual remuneration report. I am requesting access to that report.”
You work as a retail floor employee earning close to the minimum wage. You read in the news that your company's CEO earned 52.6 million rand last year — 843 times your annual salary. When you raise this with your HR manager and ask to see the formal wage gap disclosure, they tell you salary information is private and you have no right to it.
The Fallacy
Executive Salaries Are Private Business Information
HR is treating executive remuneration as confidential corporate information. But the Companies Amendment Act changed this for listed public companies: they are legally required to disclose the wage gap ratio between their highest-paid executives and their lowest-paid employees in their annual remuneration report. This is a public disclosure obligation, not internal information. The purpose is transparency and accountability on wage inequality.
What the Law Says
Your Legal Foundation
Companies Amendment Act 16 of 2024
Section 30A — Remuneration and wage gap disclosure
“Section 30A requires every public company and state-owned company to include in its annual financial statements a remuneration report that discloses the total remuneration of each prescribed officer and director, and the wage gap expressed as a ratio between the highest total remuneration paid to any employee and the total remuneration paid to the lowest-paid employee.”
If your employer is a listed public company, this is a mandatory public disclosure — not internal information. You can access it through the company's published annual report or by requesting it from the company secretary. The Companies Tribunal can be approached if the company refuses to make a lawful disclosure.
What Scripture Says
God's Word on This
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“Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.”
God takes note of wage injustice. Laws requiring transparency on pay gaps exist precisely because the gap between the highest and lowest paid is a moral issue, not just a financial one.
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What They'll Say Next
Common Counter-Arguments
After you respond, they may push back with these arguments. Members get the full rebuttal for each.
They might say: “The company says Section 30A does not apply to them because they are a private subsidiary of a larger listed group, and only the parent company files the remuneration report.”
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They might say: “The company publishes a remuneration report but structures executive pay largely through performance bonuses, share options, and long-term incentives — none of which appear in the base salary disclosed as the 'highest earner.'”
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