John Akoon
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The teaching staff at the University of Bahr el Ghazal have laid down their tools, demanding six-month salary arrears.
In an exclusive interview with The City Review on Friday, the Secretary General of the Workers Union at the University of Bahr el Ghazal in Wau, Emmanuel Maker, said the boycott will continue until Tuesday to send a stern warning to the national government to pay six months or 70 per cent of the salaries to the staff.
“From yesterday until Tuesday, this will be the warning that the government will intervene to do minimum solutions to pay us for these six months, or 70 per cent so that the university workers will be able to wait for the remaining months,” Maker said.
According to him, the decision was reached on Thursday by the teaching staff during a meeting.
“We have a salary for five months, which is from September, October, November, December, and January, plus arrears from June 2023; all of them make six months,” Maker explained.
“The schools are opening and all the workers at the university and lecturers have not registered their children because some of the schools need full payment of school fees,” he added.
The workers’ union secretary-general also revealed that students will be expected to receive their exams on February 19, 2024, but if the national government fails to address the matter, there will be no exams for university students.
“Now, students are going to start exams on February 19, 2024, but because salaries are not paid, there will be no exams,” he stated.
“You are teaching some children at the university and your children who are with you in the house are not studying. So that was the question, and we say it cannot work for us to give them exams; we need our children also to be registered because it doesn’t make sense.”
Maker pondered how the national government expects them to survive if they have not been paid for six months.
“For six months, how do they expect them to survive, let alone medication? Other lecturers are dying without receiving their salaries. We have a number of the two people who passed away without receiving their salaries. So here people are in very bad situations,” Maker lamented.
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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