South Africa's Financial Mail looks at the gap between executive and worker pay (note that the figures presented are in South Africa Rand, which currently exchanges for 0.132 U.S. Dollars):

SA's wealthiest and lowest salary earners continues to widen. Figures released by the presidency last week showed that earnings of the average SA worker grew by only 4%/year over the past five years. This contrasts with research by the FM showing that 171 executive directors of the top 40 JSE-listed firms took home R2,7bn last year - nearly R16m each.

The pay gap has become a target of trade unions, which are increasingly citing high executive pay to justify above-inflation-rate demands for salary hikes.

Perhaps a better measure is the amount paid to directors as a percentage of the company's average pre tax profits over the past three years.

For shareholders, anomalies can be seen in companies like Uranium One, which made an average profit of only R18m over the past three years, yet its directors made R76m last year, including a R52m gain from options.

But is it a zero-sum game? Does CEO pay have to drop to narrow the difference? Mark Bussin, chairman of 21st Century Pay Solutions, says there is no proven link between higher levels of executive pay and lower levels of worker pay. " The view might be that you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, but executive pay is still rising faster than the lower levels in countries that are far more equal than SA," he says.

Ultimately, Bussin says, this becomes a moral discussion. "Is it right to pay someone R5m/year and another person R50 000 when they both buy the same food and fuel? " he asks.