Roundup: South Sudan university lecturers on strike over delayed salaries

South Sudan's lecturers at five public universities resolved on Tuesday to go on strike over delayed three-month salaries and promised bonuses by government which could scale down operations at institutions of higher learning.

The industrial action came after a seven-day strike notice elapsed on Tuesday.

Philip Finish, a lecturer at Juba University and spokesman of lecturers' joint assembly told Xinhua the lecturers are demanding immediate pay, medical cover, travel allowances and also salary increase.

The pay hike follows a directive from the Council of Ministers who had hiked salaries for all civil servants in the wake of the devaluation of the local currency by 84 percent in December 2015.

"We sat in the general assembly of all the five public universities and resolved that if our demands are not met after the expiry of the seven days issued to the government, we shall have no option but to lay down our tools," Finish told journalists in Juba.

The five public universities to be affected include Juba, Rumbek, University of Bahr El Ghazal, John Garang University of Science and Technology and Upper Nile University.

The economy is reeling from high hard currency exchange rate with the U.S. dollar exchanging at 42 to the South Sudanese Pound in May from 32 in April after the return of former rebel leader and first-vice president Dr. Riek Machar to Juba to form the transitional unity government.

The cash-stripped transitional unity government hopes to increase oil production in Unity and Upper Nile oil fields that was halted by more than two years civil conflict and drop in global oil prices.

The country depends on oil exports to finance 98 percent of its fiscal budget and it still awaits the promised financial bailout from the international community after it sent a high delegation to Washington in April led by Finance Minister Deng Athorbei to negotiate with the IMF/World Bank.

The government is also weary of other civil servants demanding pay increase since the lecturer's strike followed the April strike by medical workers at the main referral Juba Teaching and Wau hospitals demanding pay rise.

Some lecturers earn as little as 400 U.S. dollars a month, which is eaten up by inflation now at 224 percent. In the past when they have gone on strike, government has always found a way to meet their demands.

Finish added they hope to use the strike to negotiate two collective bargaining agreements which had been abandoned after the government failed to respond to their demands in the past.

"Very unfortunate that we are going to do this, this is going to paralyze learning and disadvantage our students. We want our children to be taught and graduate on time," he explained.

The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Peter Adwok Nyaba, told journalists that the Education sector was among the sectors excluded from salary increase by cabinet and yet the government has a meager resource envelope at the moment.

"They have a right to strike if they are not paid within the mandated 30 days. The transitional government of national unity is not effective. The case of the lecturers' strike over pay has been one of the outstanding issues I found after becoming minister," Nyaba said.

He revealed that some lecturers had already boycotted teaching at the public Universities prior to the strike over outstanding pay. Endit