South Sudan: The Wages Our Public Sector Employees Deserve

 

By John Apuruot Akec

 

Individuals sacrifice significant amounts of leisure time for labour by putting their skills and energies into work in return for earning income. By so doing, they meet their families’ daily wants for food and clothing, accommodation, education, healthcare, and travel and transportation. Country’s macroeconomic performance is measured by the rate of unemployment (the number of people looking for work but can’t find it) besides inflation and rate of growth of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The lower the rate of unemployment of an economy, the easier it is to find work, and the healthier the economy is said to be performing. The reverse is true. Namely, the higher the rate of unemployment, the poorer the economic performance.  

 

The demand for labour is derived from economic activity arising from needs by consumers and governments for goods and services. Hence, if there is no consumption, there is no production, and hence the higher the unemployment. And if there is no employment, there is no consumption, and the downward spiral of an economy continues until it is broken by injection of new investment, public or private. The new investment creates new jobs, and kick-starts the demand for goods and services, and leading to economic growth.

 

What’s more, an economy that pays higher real wages per hour of work, provides a better quality of life to its citizens than one that does otherwise. Higher wages attract more individuals to sacrifice leisure for work in expectation of receiving incomes capable of satisfying their wants. And here lies the challenge for South Sudan. The nation has one of the lowest pay structures for public servants in the region.

 

A taskforce set up by the University of Juba in collaboration with Sudd Institute and Ebony Centre for Strategic Studies, and which was chaired by this author in January 2021, was able to unearth startling facts about the remuneration of employees of our public sector.  A private soldier receiving monthly wage of 600 South Sudanese pounds in 2011 was earning the equivalent of USD 200 a month. Today, a private soldier receives about SSP 3,000 (after 300 percent increment in 2016 and and 200 percent increment in 2021, respectively). This wage is now worth a mere USD 6 at today’s exchange rate. Likewise, a member of national legislative assembly was receiving a basic pay of SSP 7,000 per month in 2011 and which was equivalent to USD 2,300 per month. However, by 2021, the value of the salary received by a member of parliament in real term was equivalent to USD 15 per month. These low salaries cut across a wide spectrum of public sector institutions, with exception of universities which have seen two consecutive adjustments to inflation in 2015 and 2019 respectively.

 

Many factors, according to the finding of the Taskforce, have contributed to prevalence of low wages in the public sector in South Sudan. Foremost, the depreciation of the national currency against the dollar has caused the stagnant salaries of public sector employees (valued in South Sudanese pounds) to lose their purchasing power steeply. This loss of purchasing power in turn has led to declining living standards of public sector employees. In a well managed economy, wages are adjusted to inflation in order to maintain the purchasing power.

 

Second, the shares of wage bill as percentage of public expenditure and revenue have continued to decline sharply over the past seven years. In fiscal year 2015/16, the share of public wage bill as percentage of public expenditure stood at 51% (compared to 18% in Kenya). By 2019/2020, that share had declined to 13% (compared to 17% in Kenya). Seen in terms of share of public revenue, the share of wage bill as percentage of public revenue in South Sudan was 78% in fiscal year 2015/2016 (compared to 51% in Kenya). By 2020, the share of wage bill had fallen by a staggering 61 percentage points to 17% (compared to 48% in Kenya in which the share of public wage bill fell by a minuscule 3 percentage points over the same period).

 

Thirdly, South Sudan came out to have the largest headcount of the organised forces in Sub Sahara Africa. Our organised forces’ headcount is twice that of Nigeria, three times that of Ethiopia and Sudan, nine times that of Uganda, and fourteen times that of Tanzania. In addition, the military expenditure (amounting to 61% of public expenditure) is fifteen times the share of Nigeria’s and Ethiopia’s, twelve times that of Kenya, and twice that of Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania combined. It is an incredible drain on the economy without apparent benefits in terms of improved security across the country, while South Sudan’s organised forces remains as one of the lowest paid, poorly trained, and poorly equipped armies in the region.

 

The solution? Adjust the public sector pay to inflation with 2011 salaries as the baseline, and using consumer price index (CPI) to compute the new wages. Thus, a private soldier’s gross pay will need to rise to SSP 80,000 per month on today’s prices from the current SSP 3,000 per month; a member of parliament monthly gross pay will be SSP 1.2 million when adjusted to inflation; a government minister pay will receive be receiving SSP 1.8 million as opposed to SSP 10,000 per month base pay; while a grade 1 civil servant monthly pay should be SSP 400,000, and a grade 17 worker wage will come to SSP 55,000 per month.

 

These are just a few examples among so many categories of public sector wages that can potentially be adjusted to inflation. To do so will count as a good beginning that must be sustained and improved as our economy grows and stabilises.