Civil servants strike threatens to close border posts

A proposed strike by government workers in South Africa's Mpumalanga province is threatening to close border posts between Mozambique and Swaziland, media reports said on Wednesday. A spokesman for the public services association in the province was quoted as saying that the border posts would be closed for three hours on Friday as part of a national pay strike by civil servants. The spokesman said that if their demands were not met they would close the borders altogether next Tuesday. "On 2 August no one is going to work at the border post unless the government agrees to our demands," he said. The civil servants are demanding a 10 percent increase, So far, the government has offered a 6 percent increase.