University students in Bor protest against salary delays for lecturers in 2019 Credit | Ayom Ruei

A senior official at the ministry of finance says plans are underway to pay the salaries and arrears of academic staff of the public universities.

The Deputy Minister of Finance admitted that the government did not pay civil servants for months due to the “hard economic situation” as a result of a decline in the oil prices and meagre non-oil revenues.

“You know very well that we get our money at the Ministry of Finance through non-oil revenues and oil revenues [but] prices of oil have declined in the recent period,” said Agok Makur.

The oil is the largest source of revenue for South Sudan’s fledgeling economy.

Mr. Makur disclosed that the economic cluster headed by Vice President Dr. James Wani Igga is developing plans to clear the outstanding salaries.

“Efforts are underway in regard to non-oil revenues. We want to reassure the citizens…that we are very concerned about how to pay the remaining arrears.”

However, Mr. Agok did not specify when the dues would be paid.

Civil servants including the academic staff in public universities have not been paid their salaries for about 8 months.

The lecturers and academic staff at the universities of Upper Nile and Bahr el Ghazal are demanding the government to pay them their seven months’ salary next week.

They are also demanding what they call “annual ticket allowances.”

The salary they are demanding is for April and May for the financial year 2019/2020.

Others are from August, September, October November and December for the financial year 2020/2021.