Police reject one-month salaries, shoot at officials in Jonglei
June 18, 14 (BOR) – A group of policemen in Jonglei state on Wednesday shot at senior officers in protest over an administrative decision to pay them one-month salaries instead of two.
“We have not been paid for two months now. April and May. We had in rumors that the two month salaries were out, but we don’t know why they give one month salary”, said an officer who declined to be named.
“One-prison guard opened fire at his officials in Bor, after he learned that his names were missing in the payroll, but no one was killed or injured. He was arrested and imprisoned”, he added.
State officials and the police spokesman declined to comment on the actual causes of Wednesday’s shooting and instead suspended the processes of paying the rowdy law enforcement officers.
Salaries for the organised forces, including the police, wildlife and prison forces directly come from the national government thus separate from the state budget from which civil servants are paid.
GHOST OFFICERS
Cases of ghost workers have also been evidenced as many officers often include names of close relatives on payrolls with authorities relying on the October 2013 payroll to cross check names.
“They brought in their own daughters, wives and the other relatives to fill Nuer positions. They think the war is over, it will be difficult for them to participate in the fighting since they were not trained. To cash salary is not the issue but to protect and defense the nations is number one”, said one of the policemen in Bor.
Last year, South Sudan’s interior ministry reportedly discovered at least 11,000 ghost police officers, while an additional 16,000 names were to be investigated. The names, officials said, were detected on the payroll, but did not match the identities of any serving officers.
(ST)