South Sudan will review the recent increases in the work permit fee for foreigners.
Cabinet
Affairs minister Elia Lomoro Tuesday announced that the government had
already formed a committee headed by the Finance ministry to re-analyse
the order.
The new charges provoked a flurry of complaints, especially from the aid agencies operating in the country.
The fees were raised from $100 to $10,000.
To submit
Dr
Lomoro said the committee reviewing the directive was ready to submit
its finding, which he added would enable the government to take an
alternative step.
“The committee reviewing the order has met and the
information I have from the Ministry of Finance is that they were ready
to submit their report.
"We will now have the report and revisit where we can and develop a mechanism on how to address the matter,” he said.
The
minister pointed out that Juba was benchmarking the concerns raised by
several aid agencies, but said the matter would be sorted out soon to
safeguard the mutual relations between the young nation and the
humanitarian community.
Our colleagues
“We
are benchmarking the challenges so that we are within the context of
the region and we have requested our colleagues in the region to give us
a little time to address the matter,” he said.
The UN
Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan, Mr Eugene Owusu, underlined
that most of the foreigners working in South Sudan were aid workers.
He
said increasing work permit fees for aid workers was unfair since they
were delivering assistance to South Sudanese citizens, who currently
relied on humanitarian aid to survive.
This story was first published on Africa Review
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