On Tuesday this week, several employees on the government’s payroll expressed their dissatisfaction over the 100 percent salary increment which they described as more of a ‘drop in the ocean’.

Many of them said the money cannot feed their families given the ballooning household expenses brought by the runaway inflation in the economy.

“When you compare the current prices of basic commodities in the market with such amount, what will it do? To me, it is just a joke,” one employee said.

Last month, the Minister of Public Service and Human Resource Development Joseph Bakosoro announced a new salary structure of one hundred percentage increment for all government employees working in public institutions and the organized forces.

According to the new structures, an employee of Grade 1 receives SSP 13, 580, and Grade 17 which is the least Grade gets SSP 2,378. Meanwhile, in the organized forces, the General gets SSP 17,000 and the 2nd Lt which is the least rank in the organized forces receives SSP 8,806.

The 100 percent increment was a good decision but again with the growing inflation in the market since the aftermath of the 2008 and 2009 economic crisis, the new salary rate may have no significant improvement on the standards of living of the employees and instead; it creates incentives for corruption.

According to the International Labour Organisation’s 2010/2011 Global Wage Report, global growth in real absolute average wages was reduced by half in 2008 and 2009, compared to earlier years. Over the past decades, public sector wages have been declining at a rapid pace in many developing countries including South Sudan right after the 2008-2009 economic crisis.

So, despite the 2008 and 2009 economic crisis that affected the whole world, the civil servants’ salary in South Sudan was not structured to cope up with the crisis as well as the prices in the market that result in rampant corruption in the public sectors compared to the two years (2005-2007) after the formation of the government of Southern Sudan. 

Since the beginning of the third millennial year (21st century), the world has experienced two economic crises -2008 and 2009 and the current world economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For 16 years until recently on September 29, 2021, when the new salary was approved; the civil servants had been receiving their salaries under the old salary structure which in turn had led to widespread corruption in most government institutions.

We can hardly prevent corruption as long as the public servants continue to earn low salaries because poorly paid civil servants are more vulnerable to illicit businesses such as corruption and bribery. The link between low salaries and corruption is that for civil servants with low salaries, corruption becomes a coping strategy to compensate for economic hardship. The underpaid staff often accepts bribes easily for basic necessities compared to if he was being paid better. Therefore, to reduce corruption in the public sector, the government ought to pay its employees better than other factors leading to corruption can easily be addressed.