By Mamer Abraham
South Sudan Finance ministry pledges to pay salaries and wages of the civil servants in less than a week’s time.
Minister Dr. Bak Barnaba Chol said the delay was due to adjustment in salary increment to 400 percent as well as a plan to install biometrics in all the institutions across the country.
Mr. Bak said the salaries will be paid by committees comprising accountants from the Ministry of Finance and officers from the Ministry of Public Service, as well as other spending agencies.
“So, the salaries will be paid in a few days; I don’t just want to say tomorrow or after tomorrow, but it is not going to take a week. We are going to start paying our salaries for our public servants and our military in accordance with new adjustments, but it will be through a committee,” Bak told the media at the ministry premises on Monday.
Mr. Bak recalled his promise of not to delays, saying civil servants had already waited for three months and could not be forced to wait any longer.
“We are following procedures to be able to pay you your salaries on time, and as I promised in my reception speech, I am for the timely payment of salaries and wages to all our public servants and armed forces. There is no reason why you should suffer while rendering services in your respective institutions,” he hinted.
National parliament passed the 2023-2024 fiscal year budget two months ago with a 400 percent increase in civil servant salaries, instead of the agreed 600 percent.
The failure to go with 600 percent increment became contentious after the finance minister argued that it needed adequate resources and time.
But the SPLM-IO saw this as prolonging the suffering of civil servants by underpaying them for their valuable services.
Meanwhile, tension had sparked and ill blood brewed among leaders from Western Equatoria state over gaps in salary payment in relation to staff of defunct states.
Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) was prompted to summon the state governor Alfred Futuyo Karaba, for questioning over claims of salary misappropriation.
However, Futuyo told the parliament that he was not involved in misappropriation of salaries of civil servants because remittances are done through the Treasury.
“My government was paying all the civil servants from the aforementioned states. We paid them for 14 months, including their arrears for 2019–2020,” said Futuyo.