South Sudan: government stops paying many public sector workers

http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2013/nov/23/south-sudan-public-sector-workers

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South Sudan: government has stopped paying public sector workers

Many civil servants' salaries have not been paid for two months because the South Sudanese government is struggling to repay $5bn it borrowed during the long oil production shutdown.

Finance minister Aggrey Tisa Sabuni said that these loans had caught up with the country. He said civil servants' wages were unlikely to be paid for another two or three months.

Oil production brings the bulk of South Sudan's revenue, and was shut down in early 2012 over a row with Khartoum (the capital of North Sudan) on pipeline transit fees.

Japan: thousands protest over new state secrets bill

Civil servants could face up to 10 years in prison for whistleblowing under government plans to considerably broaden the definition of classified information.

Organisers of a protest in Tokyo against the bill estimated that 10,000 people turned out, many carrying banners saying "Don't take away our freedom".

The bill would impact on Japanese media, which would face difficulties gathering information from state employees reluctant to speak out for fear of persecution.

Currently, long term prison sentences for whistleblowers only apply to those who leak classified data from the US military.

Cyprus: civil servants jumping ship midst austerity

Between January and September 688 applications for early retirement from the civil service were approved, and this number is predicted to grow by the end of 2013. For the whole of 2012 the figure was 734.

The largest number of early retirees came from the ministry of health.

Cyprus must slash the number of public sector workers by 4,500 by 2016, under an agreement made with the country's international lenders.

Wales: outgoing ombudsman says NHS scrutiny has broken down

The system for holding the NHS to account when things go wrong needs serious reform, said Peter Tyndall, public services ombudsman for Wales.

He proposed that non-executive directors of health boards should become independent of the executive and have their own support staff. He said in the five years since he became ombudsman the biggest change in public service delivery had not been the recession but healthcare and an aging population.

Tyndall leaves his post at the end of November to become the ombudsman and information commissioner in Ireland.

Belgium: Brussels officials denied Christmas bonus, EU court rules

In a landmark ruling Europe's highest court ruled that Brussels officials are not entitled to three years of backdated pay rises.

The automatic entitlement to an annual 1.7% pay increase for EU bureaucrats was blocked by national governments in 2011, in light of the European recession and austerity measures.

The European Commission attempted to challenge this in the EU court, and Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Latvia, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Denmark defended the decision.

Eu judges found that governments were right to cite "serious and sudden deterioration in the economic and social situation" when stopping the automatic pay increase.

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