East African Legislators during a session in Arusha, Tanzania in June, 2017 | Credit | EALA

Some members of the public say they are not happy with the government for prioritizing the membership to the economic bloc when its civil servants are starving.

Since South Sudan joined the economic bloc in October 2016, the government has not been paying the yearly membership fee which stands at 8.4 million dollars.

The new nation currently owes the regional parliament over 30 million dollars as its contribution fee.

Early this year, the lawmakers at the East African Legislative Assembly threatened to kick out South Sudan over failure to pay the annual contributions.

The Undersecretary for E.A.C at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and East African Affairs – Mou Mou Athian – told Eye Radio yesterday that the government would pay.

However, some members of the public have expressed anger over the matter.

They say the government should first pay the civil servants and improve the economy before paying the regional block.

Some of them went on to say that the government made a wrong decision in the first place by joining East Africa Community.

They were speaking on the Dawn program.

“If you are not able to pay the soldiers and our civil population in South Sudan how can you join the East African Community since we have a lot of millions which we have not paid.”

“We have not paid our civil servants for a good seven months, how can you pay the EAC when you are not able to pay your people at home and you and pay people outside. This is a great challenge to us.”

“Joining the East African community I think it was a wrong decision. We are still a young nation there is no need for us to just rush and join. They need to first work on the country’s economy before rushing to join the EAC. Now they rushed and are not able to pay the fees”