By Opio Jackson
A civil society activist has urged the government to prioritize the welfare of its employees through timely payment of salaries.
Malual Atem, a representative of the Institute of Social Policy and Research, who was speaking yesterday during the public hearing on the draft 2024/2025 Fiscal Year budget said that though the government has been working hard to prepare the budget, its failure has been the budget execution and prioritizing the civil servant’s welfare.
“I want to renew the calls on budget execution. Budget execution has been an issue in fiscal years budget.”
“If the government fails to execute the budget, what does it post? This will lead the government to fail to execute its mandate, such as paying salaries of civil servants instead of implementing its priority,” he added.
Also, he called on the August House to ensure the budget is executed during this fiscal year budget by conducting its oversight function.
Atem warned that if the government fails to execute its budget, it will not realize the payment of its civil servants’ salaries as it will continue to function with resources.
He continued that one area that the government needs to focus on is the proper collection of revenues, “South Sudan is blamed for its huge workforce, which is not productive. Why? This is because the government does not prioritize the welfareervants,” Atem stated.
“If the government aims to fight corruption, let it prioritize salaries through a proper collection of taxes.”
He questioned whereabouts government money is often being kept, “Where is the money kept because the government collects every year but saying there is no money.”
Atem tasked the Parliament to find out where the government money is often being kept whether it is kept in a bank or not.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Defence and Veterans Affairs had an expenditure of 77% in the fiscal year 2023/2024 national budget, and this was due to the high cost of providing food ratios to the defense personnel.
In the previous budget, the Ministry of Defence and Veterans Affairs was approved over SSP 150 billion, and about SSP 121 billion was allocated for defence; meanwhile, Veteran Affairs took SSP 36 billion.
However, the education and health sectors fall under the categories of spending within their budget by 53 percent and 51 percent, and the reason was because of a delayed payment of salaries and wages.