South Sudan needs to clean payroll of ghosts

The transitional government after increasing salaries for civil servants and organized forces needs to ensure it is not paying directly ghosts on the payroll.

This issue of ghost soldiers has been hovering over the public service since independence from Sudan in 2011.

There have been little or no attempts by concerned people within government to reform the public service, the biggest employer in the country.

The deputy minister of public services and human resource development, Julius Tabuley said they are undertaking head count of workers, but this may not be enough as the government needs to utilize electronic payment system to weed out ghosts on the payroll.

The government has been losing money over the years to corrupt people who seem to be beneficiaries of ghost workers.

For example, we have come across genuine workers complaining about some senior officials who have used their power to misappropriate their salaries. This needs to be tackled in order to pay active civil servants well and on time.