Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht, 52, earned a cool R29.9 million over the past year, an increase of almost 12% from the previous year, when he earned R26.8 million.

| Fin24

As recently as 2019, he earned R21.3 million.

The company published its annual report on Monday, which showed that Engelbrecht, who has been CEO of Shoprite since 2017, earned R16.8 million in guaranteed pay - slightly lower than the previous year.

But he earned a bonus ("short-term incentives") of almost R12 million - compared to R7.6 million in the previous year.

The bonus was linked to "specific short-term incentive criteria". Engelbrecht’s "actual outcome" was 112% of the target.

Over the past year, Shoprite increased its sales by more than 8% to R168 billion. The company's diluted headline profit per share rose by 20%, and its full-year dividend was 42% higher. 

Engelbrecht's total earnings came to almost R2.5 million a month.

The minimum wage in the retail sector is R28.25 per hour – or around R5 500 a month.

Last month, Woolworths announced that it would "invest" an additional R120 million to hike its base pay to store workers from R33.40 per hour to R41.25 by 2023.

Shoprite paid R13.7 billion in salaries to all its 142 602 employees across Africa.

Shoprite said that staff turnover fell to 22.4% over the past year. "People are acutely aware of the economic hardship within the countries where we operate as unemployment continues to increase."