South Sudan cabinet cuts down salaries

September 9, 2008 (JUBA) – In a Council of Ministers’ resolution passed last Friday, the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) finally resolved to cut down salaries, emoluments and entitlements for constitutional post holders in the region.

For the last three years, various organs and levels of government in Southern Sudan imposed unequal salary structures for their respective constitutional post holders, some paying more higher than normal.

According to a data presented at a last month’s meeting of the Council of Ministers, Jonglei state was leading all the ten Southern Sudan states where the governor was paid a monthly salary of 17,650 Sudanese pounds (SDG), which is about $8,800 US dollars.

The least paid governor in the ten states, according to the data, was the Western Equatoria state governor who was paid an amount of 9,150 Sudanese pounds (SDG), which is about ($4,550) monthly, including basic salary, emoluments and entitlements.

After a one week scrutiny of the situation by a Ministerial Committee formed per earlier resolution passed on August 29, 2008, the Council, in resolving the issue, has comparatively adopted the salary structures of northern Sudan for all levels of executive organs.

The resolution which is yet to be decreed into effect by the GoSS President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, will finally standardize and equalize, after three years, respective salaries, emoluments and entitlements of GoSS and state ministers, advisors, governors and commissioners at various levels of government.

According to the resolution, for instance, all the ten state governors would now be receiving equal basic salary of 1,200 SDG ($600) monthly plus emoluments and entitlements that would all add up to the amount of 10,950 SDG ($5,475), exactly the same as those of GoSS Ministers’.

Emoluments and entitlements include Cost of Living Allowance, Representation Allowance, Accommodation Allowance, Travel Allowance, Housing Subsidy, etc., some of which were not supposed to be paid on monthly basis, but in lump sum when necessary.

The decision has respectively affected executive organs’ constitutional post holders’ salaries by up to 20% to 35% reduction from the previously imposed irregular monthly salary structures, particularly in some of the ten state governments who were far above the now adopted salary structures.

Others like Western Equatoria state governor who were below the now standardized salary structures have been instead privileged by the resolution to increase by about 5-10%, respectively from previous salary structure.

Southern Sudan and state legislative assemblies would have their salary structures resolved after they are consulted with by the Executive, according to the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Gabriel Changson Chang.

This also applies to the judiciary organ that needs further study before its salary structures are resolved.

Also since last year, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the Ministry of Public Service, Labor and Human Resource Development started to screen pay sheets of GoSS civil servants in which hundreds of millions of dollars have been recovered from salaries going to individual ghost names and double or triple monthly pay from different institutions.

The Council of Ministers is also expected to scrutinize the present salary structures of civil servants in the near future for possible adjustments.

Most of the GoSS average annual budgets of $1.4 billion US dollars, and the bulk of which comes from oil revenues, are feared to have been drained annually by these huge financial irregularities since formation in 2005, leaving insufficient finances for delivery of badly needed basic services to the people.

GoSS officials blame the situation on weak, but now improving government institutions.

The semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan emerged from decades of war and started from the scratch after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, ending the conflict on January 9, 2005 between the previous central government in Khartoum led by the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

President Kiir has since 2006 publicly declared zero-tolerance on corruption in his government.