By Theophilous Ochang

At least four finance officers of Torit County, Eastern Equatoria State have been detained over the disappearance of the civil servants’ salary meant for November, said an authority.

Area commissioner Christopher Andrew told The City Review that the incident happened on Sunday after they had paid some workers on Friday and Saturday, respectively. 

 “The salary of November for the county has been stolen, not all because we received the salary on Friday last week and we started paying the staff and on Saturday we paid them because people don’t work on Sunday then we decided, and we came on Monday we found that the money has been stolen.”

He said there is already a committee formed to verify how much money was stolen and that four county finance administrators are currently under investigation while in police custody.

Andrew expressed his administration’s commitment to making sure the money is recovered and the balance is paid to the civil servants as soon as possible.     

“The money will be recovered by all means, and then they will be paid soon. We are working very hard to make sure this money is found, and we are planning that next month, the salary should be paid either by bank account or mobile money to avoid such kind of complication.”

South Sudan’s economy has been under pressure in recent years, with crude oil export revenue having dwindled since a 2013-2018 conflict and, more recently, export disruptions due to war in neighboring Sudan, leading to a delay in salary payment to civil servants.