The academic staff and their non-academic counterparts at the University of Bahr el-Ghazal on Monday boycotted work to demand their 11 months’ salary arrears from the National Ministry of Finance.
Last week, the university workers’ union gave a strike notice if the Finance ministry failed to address their demands.
Members of the workers’ union and the academic staff convened a meeting on Monday morning, marking the beginning of their strike.
The academic staff chairperson, Joseph Lual Dario, spoke to media, reaffirming their resolve.
“From today, there will be no work because we are looking for 11 months’ salary. We gave a one-week notice but there has been no response from the national ministries of Education and Finance. That is why we are now on the streets of Wau,” he said.
“We are telling the public that the situation we are in is unbearable. We are suffering with our families. We need medical cover plus flight tickets from 2019,” Dario explained.
The university workers union representative, Robia Adam Hessen, said the strike was the culmination of a joint meeting between the workers’ union and the teaching staff association.
“We reached a consensus that we will not continue working unless we receive 11 months’ salary,” said Hessen.
He called on the national government to pay all the civil servants’ arrears.
The university Vice-Chancellor, Erneo Bernardo, described the strike as a right of the workers to demand their salaries.
Of course, this is the right of the employees to have their salaries. I am not against them because over the last three or four weeks, we lost a member from the College of Education due to problems related to the salary arrears,” said Bernardo.
He said the university administration was functioning and hoped that the national government would listen to the voices of the workers.
“The administration is functioning and hopefully, the government will respond to the demands in light of the nationwide economic turmoil,” he said.