Agreement on the public service wage dispute should be reached by the end of next week and the matter finally concluded, Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi said on Thursday.

Briefing the media at Parliament, he gave the assurance that government and the trade unions were close to finding a solution, but the latter had requested more time to consult their members.

"When you deal with issues of salaries, you are dealing with bread and butter issues, highly emotive at times.

"When you are to finalise and conclude on your bargaining, you definitely need to take your membership on board," he said.

The unions' leadership had requested more time to do just that and it had been agreed to, as the Public Service Coordinated Bargaining Council (PSCBC) understood that more time was needed for further consultation and consolidation.

"We are looking forward that by the turn of the week next week, we may be in a position where we can report concretely, to then say this is where we are in terms of a consulted process with mandates given...

"We are hopeful that we will see ourselves in a position where we have forward march, that we are going to communicate to the people for them to understand that yes, we have come to the end of this so that we're looking forward to dealing with other things.

"We are looking forward that the time requested for extension by the PSCBC will actually deliver."

Baloyi declined to comment on the unions' request that pay deductions in terms of the no work, no pay principle during the strike be spread over a period of time.

An announcement on this, and other matters, would be made when final agreement had been reached in the PSCBC, he said.

On Wednesday, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) announced the public sector strike was officially over, even though no deal had yet been signed with government.

At a press conference in Centurion, National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) president Michael Makwayiba said that seven of the eight Cosatu unions had accepted government's offer of a 7,5% wage increase and an R800 monthly housing allowance.

"Today I think is the final closure of the strike."

He believed that the 50% support threshold needed to accept the offer would be reached soon.

Independent Labour Caucus (ILC) spokesperson Chris Klopper said that one of the ILC unions had accepted the offer, bringing the total to about 45% of workers accepting it.

He said that by next Tuesday he believed that more union leaders representing another 36% of workers would have received a mandate to either accept or reject the offer.

Makwayiba said: "We must appreciate the strike this year was a long protracted strike. We had to be sure that we reach every union."

The unions suspended their four-week strike early in September for 21 days to allow members time to consider government's offer.