Civil servants held peaceful demonstrations on the streets of the Jonglei State capital, Bor town, on Thursday to demand unpaid salary arrears, a month after threatening to down tools if the state failed to pay them.
A representative of the protestors, Peter Kon Bar, told Radio Tamazuj that they staged a demonstration because the state government has repeatedly ignored their petitions.
“What we are saying is that we have unpaid salaries from October 2021. We also have unpaid salaries for January this year. All in all the government failed to pay our salaries,” he said. “We wrote many petitions and received no response so we have to strike. This demonstration is peaceful and not disastrous.”
“We are just demanding our rights,” he added.
Another striking civil servant, Mary Ayen, said they will continue striking and not go to work until their demands are met.
“We the civil servants are demanding our salary arrears for two months,” she said. “It is our right and we will continue pressing until the (arrears) are cleared.”
Another furious government employee, Ali Philip, said the issue of non-payment of salaries has become recurrent and the government must address it.
“This issue of going unpaid is becoming endemic in Jonglei. How can a civil servant not get a salary since 2021?” he questioned. “We are on the streets because we want these things to stop. Salaries of civil servants is a human right and should not be tampered with by the government.”
Efforts to get a comment from Jonglei State government officials were futile.
Civil servants in Bor town have often gone demonstrated over unpaid salary arrears with the latest being in March when they threatened to down tools.