President Salva Kiir has apologized to civil servants for the failure of his government to pay salaries on time.

Civil servants and other employees on government payroll have gone for nearly seven months without pay.

In his Independence Day speech at J1, Kiir apologized to all civil servants and promised to personally ensure that all salary arrears are paid.

The President said he is aware that the living conditions of the people have worsened due to unpaid salaries.

He attributed these to the 5-year conflict that the country has been experiencing.

President Kiir said these have affected service delivery across the country.

“I am fully aware that our people are hungry because of the difficult living conditions imposed upon them by insecurity and economic hardships,” Kiir lamented.

The President, who has been in power since 2005, also blamed the problem on weak system of governance, which has been embroiled in corruption and institution such as anti-corruption commission set up to combat it are said to be toothless.

“This is further exacerbated by the failure of my government to pay the salaries of our civil servants on time. However, that salary maybe little, It does make some difference in the livelihood of the families of our civil servants.”

“I want to sincerely apologize to you my people on my own behalf and on behalf of the government for those failures.”

However, he assured the employees that the ministry of finance and economic planning would resolve the matter quickly.

“My government undertook several resolutions directing the ministry of finance and planning to pay all the outstanding arrears of our workforce and scheduled prompt payment of salaries to the employees of the government Republic of South Sudan at both the national and state levels of the government,” the President added.