By Taban Henry
The unity government at the level of the Council of Ministers has started deliberating on an earmarked budget ceiling of over 658 billion South Sudanese Pounds as the new salary structure proposed budget for the civil servants.
This came during Friday’s Council of Ministers regular meeting No.14/2022 after the national Minister of Public Service and Human Resource Development presented to the Cabinet the new salary structure of civil servants and the organized forces.
Addressing the media after the Council of Ministers’ meeting, the Minister of Information and government’s spokesperson, Michael Makuei Lueth said they (Council of Ministers) were briefed by the Minister of Public Service and Human Resource Development, and the presentation was on the new salary structure.
Makuei stated that the new salary structure was passed in 2020 but a committee was set up to work on the salary structure readjustment. He said it was on Friday (yesterday) that the committee presented its recommendation to the cabinet for consideration.
“The cabinet made observations on the new salary structure and decided that it should be referred to the Economic Cluster because the new salary structure did not even include the unified forces that are in the field. So, it was found that the work was incomplete and was referred to the economic cluster,” he told reporters Friday.
According to the Information Minister, the figures of the new salary structure are known saying it’s just a matter of calculating the amount then added to the current salary structure so that they are all included instead of passing the new salary structure and again they wait for the coming group to be appointed or to be included.
Makuei added that the discussion on the new salary structure was adjourned and referred to the economic cluster for consideration before the final presentation to the Council of Ministers for approval so that it goes to the parliament (R-TNLA) for further deliberation in form of a supplementary budget.
“The new salary structure demanded more than the current salary structure presented to the cabinet and it was demanding a sum of 658,777,579,118 billion South Sudanese Pounds,” Makuei disclosed.
“This is of course the budget and it requires a lot of resources and that is one of the reasons why it was passed to the economic cluster to find out the source of funding of this amount and the new forces which is coming in,” he added.
The government’s spokesperson underscored that the new salary structure looks into the current economic crisis as most of the civil servants including himself could not afford something from the market with the current salary structure.