Hon. Dharuai Mabor, the youth MP who represents Western Lakes at the TNLA | Credit | Joakino Francis/Eye Radio

A Member of Parliament has called on the High-Level Task Force on COVID-19 to ensure the Ministry of Finance and Planning pays civil servants a four- months’ salary by next week.

The taskforce early this month locked down the country as a preventive measure to stop the spread of coronavirus, with civil servants and other workers asked to work half-day and non-essential staff to stay home.

The government also closed down some businesses except markets and clinics and closed the country’s borders.

All airports in the country have also been temporarily closed.

Since the partial lockdown of the country, many citizens have expressed concern over the impact of some of the measures imposed by the government on their daily lives.

Some residents of Juba who spoke to Eye Radio say they earn their living by working daily.

MP Dhurai Mabor who represents Western Lakes in the Transitional National Legislative Assembly says civil servants who have not received their pay for some months are now feeling the pinch of the lockdown.

“The civil servants have their dependents, those who are depending on them on their daily activities and this is how their families get service from them,” Mabor said on Friday.

“If the government came with measures as a result of the lockdown, and the ministry of finance kept quiet without any measures to make sure that there is another alternative for the civil servants and the people to be helped, then this becomes a threat.”

He emphasizes that the taskforce should ask the minister of finance to pay civil servants’ salaries of at least four months to enable them to provide for their families.

“Now the people got two threats, the threat of hunger and the threat of the coronavirus spread,” MP Mabor said.