The council of ministers chaired by President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Friday directed the minister of general education to come up with a strategy for the government to reclaim public school lands that have been grabbed and or encroached on by squatters.

Addressing scribes after the cabinet meeting on Friday, Information Minister Michael Makuei, said Vice President for the Service Delivery Cluster Hussein Abdel Bagi made a presentation on the issue of school lands that have been grabbed.

He said the minister of general education and instruction, Awut Dent Acuil, was then directed by the cabinet to prepare a memo on how to recover school lands and present it to the council of ministers.

“The Council decided that the minister of general education and instruction present a memo to the cabinet on the same for further deliberation and consideration of any other appropriate actions that may be taken to recover all the lands in the Republic of South Sudan that belong to the ministry of education and other government institutions,” Makuei said.

He added that the cabinet also listened to a presentation from General Education Minister Deng about her recent visit to Unity State in which she reported challenges faced by the education sector.

“There are checkpoints on roads and rivers (manned) by people who are not known and as such they are the ones who are causing lots of problems and these problems add to the cost of transporting even school materials like books and so forth,” Makuei said. “When they are taken by river, the people on the rivers charge them highly and people have to pay, as such, this is causing them a lot of problems. Anyway, the cabinet was informed and all the directives were given as to what should be done next.”