The Catholic Church in South Sudan will not send away foreigners who are working in the Church institutions in the Country for simple reason that the directive by the Foreign Affairs Minister to expel all alien workers was not clear on the positions of missionaries and Lay expatriates.
Speaking to AMECEA Online News from Juba, the Secretary General to Sudan Catholic Bishops Conference (SCBC) Fr. Jacob Odwa said that currently, the Catholic Church in South Sudan has foreigners working for Church institutions as religious missionaries or lay expatriates. “Some of these people work at the Catholic University of Sudan, Seminaries, Catholic Radio Network, schools and other Church institutions; I think the direction by the government to expel all foreign workers in the country does not apply to the people working with Church institutions as volunteers,” he said.
On 17thSeptember 2014 a Press statement was released by ministry of Labour, Public Service and Human Resource Development giving clarifications on what was reported by media that authorities in Juba announced a ban on foreigners including aid workers in order to give their positions to the nationals.
The press release which was signed by the Ngor Kolong Ngor; the Minister for Labour, Public Service and Human Resource Development stated that the directive was targeting low level positions existing in the various organizations, financial institutions, hotels etc whose compositions will not reach 40% of the total staffing structure; but excluding all United agencies, diplomatic missions and organizations that signed bilateral/mutual agreement with the republic of South Sudan such as IGAD, USAID etc.
Also not targeted in the list are technical or professional positions such as Nurses, Head of missions, Country Directors and financial Controllers of any institutions including banking, insurance, hotels and Non-Government organizations.
The Catholic Radio Network (CRN) reported that the latest information from Labour Minister Ngor Kolong Ngor decreed that NGOs and private companies to notify all aliens working with them in positions of Executive Directors, Personnel Managers, Secretaries, Human Resources Officers, Public Relations Officers, Procurement Officers, Logisticians, Front Desk Officers, and Receptionists to cease working by mid-October.
Thousands of foreign workers mainly from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda fill up jobs in South Sudan especially in mobile telephone network, banking sector, upstream oil activities, hotels and other socio-economic infrastructures.
SOURCE: Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Social Communications and CRN
