Academic staff at South Sudan’s public universities on Tuesday said they will go on strike tomorrow after working three months without salary.
The university employees had given the government a seven day ultimatum to respond to their complaint about unpaid salaries.
Speaking on Tuesday, after the meeting of the General Assembly for the Public Universities in South Sudan at Juba University premise, Philip Finish Apollo, member of academic staff, said the public universities said the strike will start as of tomorrow.
“The General Assemblies of the Public Universities in South Sudan do hereby declare that they have resolved to go for an open strike with effect from 25 May 2016 until the ministry of finance settled all our three months salaries and allowance of medical coverage and annual air tickets and inclusion of higher education employees in the new salary adjustment,” said Philip.
“If the government didn’t resolve or solve our problems, of course the situation will remain as it is and the strike will continue,” he said.
Juba, Bahr el Ghazel, Upper Nile, John Garang, and Rumbek Universities are among the higher education institutions participating in the strike.
Peter Adwok, higher education minister for the transitional government of national unity, said lecturers have the right to go for strike. Adwok made the remarks over the weekend during a forum at Green Rokon.
Adwok said he is still three weeks in the government but the government is not effective with only two meetings of the council of ministers. He said for the last ten years people are stealing from the government and that is why people are not getting their salary.
“Honestly, for this issue to be resolved, the transitional government of national unity should not even waste their time on something which is not important,” he said.
“The lecturers of public universities wanted to go for strike. I told them what I had now. It is not my problem and I even found this problem in this office. I told them that going for strike are their rights because there is a contract with anybody who is working with the government to be pay of 30 days,” Adwok said.
Junior doctors at Juba Teaching Hospital have also gone on strike after employees there have received no pay for three months.