By Charles Barnaba Kisanga
This means the salary and Emolument Act since 2010 was meaningless as the monthly earnings became of no use for organized forces and civil servants. For example the salary then of a private soldier of SSP300 a month is of no value today because it will just be 50 cents.
Instead of sitting down to make a formula to take into account the devaluation and how to help civil servants to cope with the high cost of living some responsible officials resorted to copy and paste solutions whereby Executive introduced and increased their own pay and allowances without caring for the civil servants and organized forces. Recently the MPs of RTNLA have done the same hiking their pay to SSP800,000 per month while they get some hard currency too to cater for medical allowance, car allowance and outfits.
The President, thanks to HE, did some help earlier this year by ordering the doubling of salaries for civil srevants and organised forces ; resulting in private soldier earning about SSP2000 a month to a General earning SSP15,000 a month. But are these enough? Not at all because the dollar rate comparison to their salaries in 2015 is still an outcry from what they earn nowadays.
For example a General’s pay of SSP15 000 is really too little just about $20 a month and when you compared this to a salary in 2015 it would mean the general had then an income of $3000 a month. Also in those days everybody was under a law, the Emolument Act, governing their take home pay and they were about just to everybody
Hence what people needed now was an Emolument Act which includes Organised Forces and Civil Servants with their pay adjusted in comparison to the situation of 2015. This is where the Ministry of Public Service and Human Resources came in. And they are doing their level best to accomplish this. After being appointed as Minister of the Ministry Hon Bangasi Joseph Bakosoro set to do that exactly that.
A new pay structure which gives a messenger of Grade 17, SSP70,565 net pay and a soldier, rank of private, SSP89,409 was worked out by the Ministry and passed on to the Council of Ministers. Also this progresses the salaries upwards up to have a grade 1 salary at SSP286,710 or about $520 a month net which will be the same for a General. The Emolument Act if it was to be presented and passed in the RTNLA should have also catered for all Consitutional post holders both in the States and National Government not only RTNLA as of now and we can avoid the discrepancies in pay which previal now as each State has moved to set up their own pay structures for their constructional post holders.
The new salary structure and Emolument Act is good enough to address the suffering of the civil servants and organised forces and stop the unknown gun men and acts of thefts committed by hungry soldiers Also the road blocks and illegal taxes along the roads could just be history if the new salary structure were passed and implemented. However there is one setback as it has been stalled by indirect interference by somebody in a very high position.
The very person who acted as SPLM Secretary General and advised the implementation of devaluation of currency and other policies which reduced South Sudanese to beggars or thieves for survival is now blocking this new salary structure and Emolument Act, using her weight as Speaker. In an ideal situation the Rt Hon Speaker is supposed to be the first to side with the interest of the common citizens, not the reverse as here because she should be the higest voice of the people.
Although she is away from SPLM it seems her influence cannot go away as it is rumored she has persuaded and connived with somebody in the Economic cluster to block the tabulated new salary structure and pend it there while the budget was worked on and passed under her as Speaker without the salary increment the civil servants and organised forces badly needed so that every South Sudanese can live amicably and peacefully without fear of driving to other towns or fear of being robbed at gunpoint or fear of being killed by unknown gun men because salary of our forces are useless as it is now.
The excuse that there is no money or money is to be found first is a lie because the MPs salary was just SSP9,000 a month and it was hiked by 1000% and the money was quickly found to pay them. Why pay money such as $700 million in cash to a company to build a road while civil servants and organised forces are starving? So let us pay our Government workers well first then it will be they do find the money for those road projects because they will no longer be hungry and they will be hard workers who can even build our roads without these shadow and conning companies. The new salary structure would have added SSP658 billion to the current meagre SSP263 billion, which is the ceiling by MOF&P in the current passed budget. Well the budget was still passed with a huge deficit so no problem if this is added and we channel the oil money for pay rises instead of the oil money going to individual pockets.
Don’t ask why and how the Rt Hon Speaker is doing it but it is a common talk in Government circles that the Speaker is colluding with some collaborators in the Economic cluster so that the new salary structure and new Emolument Act is held in the Economic cluster for good because of the fear that if it comes out today then people may associate it with Hon Bangasi Bakosoro and make him even more popular which had always been Nunu’s fear.
Her policy of trying to undermine those she think they can perform better than her in the Government of which I’m her vicious victim too is just at work without care about the poverty our civil servants and organised forces are going through . Of course people are aware of the publicity last year that Hon Bakosoro was coming as Vice President until it went quietly because Jemma Nunu foght a vicious war to block it using the same individual she is using now to block the salary adjustments for organised forces and civil servants. It would need a different article to explain how she colluded and robbed Hon Bakosoro of that position but people in the Government circles know it very well. The colluding landed her as Speaker.
The idea of punishing a whole nation because you are afraid of the fame of one man is unacceptable and is unpatriotic and an example of failing a country for the sake of self interest. Let us promote the country because it is for generations to come and what you do today to ruin a country for the sake of your individual pride and fame; which even cannot last until tomorrow is unacceptable and damaging to your legacy when you go and it is finally exposed. Rt Hon Speaker if I can ask you, ‘how safe are you from your own body guards when you are earning millions and your bodyguard captain just earns SSP6,000 which is not enough to even put a single meal on his table for his family?’ What feeling do you have for others really when they sacrificed so much to create a nation and now live in our own created misery of today?
If this is the the spirit Rt Hon Jemna Nunu Kumba has to continue with even during transitional period like this where we are supposed to work hand in hand with everybody including the opposition for the sake of Peace and building a viable nation, then it would be better if the Speaker makes a dignified move to resign rather than waiting for the wrath of the people of South Sudan. Let her not think that this cannot happen because whatever wrong or evil you are doing to your people today there will be a time of reckoning even if it means the day Christ, Himself returns to Earth.
On behalf of the civil servants and organised forces and SMC I’m appealing to HE our President to ignore whatever excuses was used to stall the move of improving salaries and sending it to the Economic cluster to pend it there, to act on his own and bulldoze it through. The common citizens are better informed now and they will support our President with whatever action he takes to help his organised forces and civil servants.
The author is a concerned citizen.