Academic staff in South Sudan’s public university system declared a strike on Tuesday, refusing to work until they receive months of unpaid salary.
The “open strike will begin on May 25th, and go until the Ministry of Finance settles our three months of unpaid salaries, allowance of medical coverage, annual air tickets, and includes higher education employees in the new salary adjustment,” said Philip Finish Apollo, a member of academic staff at Juba University.
“If the government doesn’t resolve or solve our problems, of course the situation will remain as it is and the strike will continue,” he said.
The effected institutions include Juba , Bahr El Ghazel, Upper Nile, John Garang and Rumbek Universities.
Lecturers free to go on strike
Minister of Higher Education Peter Adwok said the academic staff have a right to go on strike.
The transitional government has not been effective, Adwok said, and in the past three weeks there have only been two Council of Ministers meetings. Adwok said lecturers have not received their salary because for the past ten years, people have been stealing from the government.
“I told lecturers that going on strike is their right because there is a contract,” Adwok said. “I think the situation is going to get worse and worse”.
Related
Juba University risks closure due to lack of funding (11 May)