Gov’t told to prepare elderly for retirement

JUBA, OCTOBER 18, 2023 (SUDANS POST) – A member of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly on Tuesday called on the government to start retiring employees above 65 years from active service.

Speaking during a parliamentary sitting on Tuesday in Juba, John Agany Deng, Chairperson of the Information committee and assembly spokesman said the elderly civil servants should be pensioned off to allow new graduates to take over their positions.

“From today onward, the government should prepare our elderly who have served tirelessly to this nation to give them an appreciation so that they can go home and start their new life,” said Agany.

Agany who represent Aweil East County of Northern Bahr el Ghazal State on the ticket of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) also urged the government to start availing funds to retire the aging civil servants

“The problem is always basically about the resources, and you know the little money that is taxed from individuals might not necessarily constitute to give valid rights and benefits to those who have been serving our nation,” he said.

“Those of us who are aging or who are already old should also accept that we have to go home and wait for our benefits in our own houses,” he added.

He believed keeping older workers in the workforce longer is blocking youth from getting jobs.

“Because this will give a chance to young people to see light and it will even improve development and it will even improve the quality of our work that we perform to the nation,” he said.

“Definitely we need to give technology a chance because technically, most of our youth are very highly educated, education that some of us didn’t even receive, we were too manual but today, it is technical and people are digitalized and for that matter, we need to give chance to our youth,” he stressed.

He said those who will be sent for pension are not condemned to death but they can still serve the nation in various capacities.

“Those who are going for pension are not condemned to death and they should also believe they contribute to nation-building in some other ways, you can become a cultivator, somebody who can cultivate and feed people of South Sudan,” Agany said.

He said the country has vibrant graduates who can deliver effectively when given the opportunity.

“Lately, in the last two to three years, we have a lot of graduates in our country, they are young people and some of them are sitting idling and giving a lot of talk under the tree, they are not working because the old persons are still occupying the positions they are supposed to occupy,” he said.

In 2019, cabinet Minister, Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro said there are over 600 civil servants that need to retire to create space for young people. He said that most of them who have reached the retirement age limit of 65 refused to leave work, saying they must first be assured of benefits before retirement.

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