The academic staff at Rumbek University of Science and Technology (RUST) on Tuesday took to the streets of the Lakes State capital, Rumbek, to demand payment of eight months’ salary arrears and air tickets and medical allowances for the last five years.
The lecturers who were chanting “Now salary, no work” were seen carrying placards and manila papers emblazoned with various messages demanding the payments of the salary arrears of civil servants and the armed forces.
Several of the protestors told this publication that they would continue to scale up peaceful demonstrations and sleep on the street if the government did not heed and pay them.
Garnop Makur, a lecturer, said the government has a contractual obligation to pay them and has treated them unfairly yet they have families to look after.
“We have a social contract with the government and when we were appointed, we were contracted and at the end of every month we will be given our money. We have been patient and waiting for our government to pay us since last year,” he lamented. “We have children and rent houses and some of our colleagues have been evicted for defaulting. Some of us have sick children who need medical attention and there is no money to take them to hospital and even to school.”
Makur added: “It is the harsh conditions forced us on the streets and if the government does not pay us immediately, we will be on these streets every day and sleep here while demanding our rights.”
Another academician, Emmanuel Rundial, said they are vital to the country because they produce the nation’s human resources and must be paid.
“We demand our rights as civil servants to be paid our salaries. We have taken eight months without receiving our salaries. We the academic staff are very important in this country because we produce human resources every day. So, we are calling upon our government to give us our salaries,” he stated. “Some of our colleagues are dying every day because they do not have money to treat themselves and that is why we are making this demand as academic staff of Rumbek University.”
For his part, a member of the RUST academic staff, Moses Kueng Imu, acknowledged that they were last paid salary arrears for November and December 2023 earlier this year and are now owed two months’ salary arrears from last year and six months this year.
“I have spent eight months working every day while my children do not have food to eat, lack treatment when they fall sick and the government is not giving me anything,” he stated. “Even the students here at Rumbek University study without medicine. I do not know why this university is called a university. We need our salaries and also need medicines at the university.”
Meanwhile, Kot Manyuon Thuc, a lecturer, told Radio Tamazuj that the Academic Staff Association wrote a petition to the minister of higher education informing him that they will not continue with sit-down strikes only but scale up to peaceful demonstrations until their demands are met.
“Finally, failure of government to pay all the demands…then the academic staff of Rumbek University of Science and Technology will not conduct lectures in the academic year 2024/2025,” the petition reads in part.