U.N. appeals to South Sudan to exempt aid workers from hike in work permit fees
The United Nations has appealed to South Sudan to exempt aid workers from the 100-fold hike in work permit fees to enable them respond to famine in the country.
The appeal comes following reports that humanitarian agencies are struggling to reach those in need of aid amid fighting and looting in the world’s youngest nation.
South Sudan is said to be relying on international aid to feed about a third of its people.
The country’s government increased work permit levies for international professionals, saying this was a way to obtain more revenue outside the conventional sources.
“We are deeply concerned,” Guiomar Pau Sole, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.
“If applied to humanitarian organisations, (it) could mean that generously donated taxpayer money is diverted from the delivery of aid to people in dire need at a particularly critical time.”
The U.N. last month declared that parts of South Sudan are experiencing famine, the first time the world has faced such a catastrophe in six years.
The country has been rid by violence since December 2013, following a dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.
