South Sudan’s government has admitted experiencing difficulties in paying diplomats in foreign missions, attributing the cause to cash crisis.
Philip Thon leek, head of the parliamentary committee on foreign relations in the transitional parliament, confirmed in an interview on Saturday that his committee has been pushing the executive, particularly the ministry of finance to exert extra efforts to rescue the situation of diplomats at risk of eviction due to rental dues after failing to make payment for several months to their owners.
“Indeed the economic situation, as you know, has not been encouraging. There are no enough revenues and this has caused lot of inconveniences, especially to our diplomats serving in foreign missions. Their situation has been a concern to the committee because we have been receiving reports of our diplomats going for months, sometimes, they go for more three months without salaries,” Thon explained on Saturday when reached to comment on the matter.
“This has caused inconveniences not only to their families but to the owners of the properties they have rented. Now we have received reports showing that some of them are being threatened to be dragged to court for failing to pay rents by their landlords,” he said.
The legislator said several options have been tried to reduce the burden. One of these options, he said, is the decision to downsize the number of staff serving in foreign missions across the world in order to cut the costs due to economic nose-dive stemming from a two-year civil war.
“Now we are receiving reports that our diplomats don’t get their salaries regularly because of the scarcity of hard currency. This has unable them to pay their house rents abroad and to put their children to schools,” Thon added. He was reacting to reports that some of the foreign missions have been served with eviction orders for not paying rent after they have not been paid for months due to economic crisis.
Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Mawien Makol also confirmed the reports and attributed the cause to economic crisis resulting from the war.
“We are trying our best to address this concern but the problem now is that economic crisis is something known to everybody and this is why our diplomats themselves are not complaining. For them, they understand. What is generating concerns are their landlords but this issue will be addressed. The ministry is working with the ministry of finance to find a solution to it. Also the ministry is planning to reduce the number of officials in some of those embassies.”
File photo: Finance Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau