According to the minister of information, Michael Makuei Lueth, South Sudan will change its offset from UTC+3 to UTC+2.

The change will be effective at 00:00 (midnight) on February 1, when clocks will be set back 1 hour to 23:00 (11:00 pm).

Currently, South Sudan uses Eastern Africa Time (EAT). The change will put the East African country on Central Africa Time (CAT).

After the change, South Sudan will observe the same local time as Egypt and Chad and neighboring Sudan.

“The current time zone is not our actual zone, we are in longitude 30 and the difference between the Greenwich time of the UTC and the longitude is every 15 minutes is one hour,” Michael Makuei, the government spokesperson told the press after Friday’s cabinet meeting.

“We are in the 30th longitude and as such we are supposed to be two hours ahead of the Greenwich Time zone. So it was clear that the far East is 2.4 hours and the far West is 1.6 hours.”

South Sudan has been operating using the old-time that was adopted in Sudan before independence. The county is supposed to be two hours ahead not three hours in accordance with East African time.