JUBA-The South Sudan’s Ministry of Finance and Planning has commenced the disbursement of one-month salary arrears for January 2024 for members of Parliament after one year.
Civil servants, members of organized forces, have gone for more than 10 months without salary, with the government citing a limited resource envelope amid economic hardship partly due to the ongoing conflict in Sudan, which disrupted oil transportation to international markets.
Addressing journalists at a press conference in Juba on Monday, Oliver Mori Benjamin, spokesman of the transitional National Legislative Assembly, said lawmakers have started receiving their salaries arrears on the 24th of December 2024.
“Some members of the Parliament came here to receive their salary from the bank here, Nile Commercial,” Benjamin said.
Benjamin disclosed that the lawmakers have gone for recess without allowances.
“We made it clear to all the mass media houses that they have not been paid recess, and they have not been paid their medication. And they have not been paid even, like any other civil servant, for one year’s salary. It is just recently, this December, they were paid one month’s salary,” he said.
According to the parliament spokesperson, the reasons for the delay in the payment of salaries were due to the financial difficulties, and the effect of Sudan’s war on the economy.
“Some of them received theirs on the 24th of this month of December in the Nile Commercial Banking Branch, which is here in the Parliament. Others got theirs earlier,” he said.
In December 2024, the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) commenced a four-month recess, which is expected to resume until April 2025.
The lawmakers went for recess without recess allowance and medical allowance.
