Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Secretary-General (SG) for Central Equatoria State Teachers’ Union said he has been stripped of the union membership and threatened by the state Minister of Education following his recent call on the state government to pay teachers their full salary or face strike when school reopens in January.
Mr. Justin Walak the union SG claimed that Cirsio Zecharia the state Minister of Education called him on Christmas Eve and said that he had been suspended from the state teachers’ union.
“The Honourable Minister of Education called me before Christmas and said that he had withdrawn my powers from the Union and also suspended my membership from the Union,” Walak said in an interview with Juba Monitor.
“He suspended me verbally, he has not given me a suspension letter. He threatened me because in most of the meetings I have been head-on head with him and he wanted to deal away with me,” he added. Efforts by Juba Monitor to reach the Minister for comments were not successful as he declined to answer several calls.
On December 22, 2021, Justin Walak told Juba Monitor that the teachers across the state had warned of a strike early next year if the state government did not release salary arrears of the educators in accordance with the new salary structure including the nature of work of allowance.
The teachers had earlier on been given a 7-day ultimatum to the officials to respond to their grievances after allegedly omitting the column of “nature of work allowance” in the teachers’ payroll.
Mr. Walak vowed to continue with the pressure and maintained that teachers would not return to classrooms if the state government fails to address their grievances.
“We made our position very clear not to go to class on 3rd of January when the schools open unless they give us our fully salaries.
“Teachers refused to take their salaries, we went to Christmas without salaries and up to now the state Ministry did not respond to us and we shall not turn up to teach when schools open on the 3rd of January 2022,” he said.
“We have submitted our resolutions and gave ultimatum time of up to 23rd before Christmas however before 23rd the honourable Minister of Education called us for a meeting at his office and was like exercising his power by authoring the payment of salaries with the omission of nature of work allowance which means that is contracting the demand of the teachers,” he stressed.
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