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Employees of the Universities of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and Rumbek on Monday staged a sit-in strike over the non-payment of their salaries for seven months now.

Last week, the three public universities gave the government a period of one week to respond to their demands including their medical allowances for the past five years.

But the government has not heeded to their calls.

Speaking to Eye Radio on Monday, Joseph Lual who is the chairperson of University of Bahr el Gazal University Academic Staff said they were demanding for urgent payment of their salary arrears and five-year medical allowances.

“Today (Monday), we started our Industrial action which is a sit-in strike as coalition of the University of Rumbek and Upper Nile. We need urgent payment of seven months’ salary arrears from November, December 2023 and January to June 2024.

“Two, we need immediate payment of annual flight tickets allowance arrears and urgent payment of medical allowance from 2019 to 2024 and the last one is we need adjustment in the fiscal year of budget,” said Lual.

According to the Chairperson of Academic Staff at the University of Rumbek for Science Technology, Samuel Mabor, there hasn’t been no communication from the government to their grievances

He added that their children have been chased from schools as they are unable to pay their tuition fees.

“We have a lot of challenges as public universities, we have children and they are being chased out of school because of money. Even me now, my three children are at home.”

Meanwhile, Dr.  Acwanyo Adam Tabu, the chairperson of teaching staff at Upper Nile said they were patient enough with governmetn to continue teaching but their works have not been rewarded.

“We are giving lecture, we are marking and invigilating the exams and we are also marking the exams. So, we are doing all our duties. We are not like other institutions in the government because students are waiting in the class and they need to finish on time, ” he said, adding that; “We are demanding our salaries and ticket allowances.”