Government To Pay Southern Pensioners

27 July 2010 - (Khartoum) – The federal government has pledged to pay the arrears of pensioners from southern Sudan whose dues have not been paid during the war up to the 31st of December 2005.

The federal government and the GOSS signed a memorandum of understanding in Khartoum on Monday confirming the pledge made by 2nd Vice president Ali Osman Mohamed Taha during a meeting in Juba on the 1st of July this year.

The Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Labor and Public Service in the GOSS, Madam Rebecca Joshua Okwaci who attended the signing ceremony spoke to SRS in Khartoum on Monday.

[Rebecca Okwaci]: “The pledge made by Mister Ali Osman was that the GONU will shoulder the settlement of the arrears of pensions up to 2005. So this is a very important area in the MoU, the commitment which we have signed today. We appreciate the pledge made by the GONU, but it is not a favor, it is because it is a responsibility. These people have been working and by then the GOSS was not established. So there is no way the GOSS can just be given all the responsibility. The new budget of the GOSS started on the 1st of January 2006 and this is where the GOSS will shoulder the responsibility of pensions for southerners, but from 31st of December 2005 downwards, the arrears will be settled by GONU.”

Madam Rebecca Okwaci was talking to SRS in Khartoum on Monday.