(NAIROBI) – Nine Kenyan employees of the South Sudan embassy in Nairobi have taken the Government of South Sudan to court, accusing embassy officials of withholding or misappropriating their salaries for more than 53 months over the past 13 years. Court documents filed at Kenya’s Employment and Labour Relations Court reveal discrepancies between the amounts recorded on the embassy’s official payroll in Juba and what workers actually received in their bank accounts or in cash.
In some months when salaries were paid, employees say they received less than one fifth of what was stated on the official payroll. The court filings suggest that parts of their wages were siphoned off, with records altered to disguise the alleged fraud.
The claimants, who have worked in the embassy’s foreign affairs, immigration and security departments, say none of them were ever issued with formal contracts despite over a decade of service. They are now demanding the court order the payment of their salary arrears covering almost three and a half years.
Payroll records accessed by the workers indicate significant disparities. In one case, an employee hired in January 2012 agreed to a net monthly salary of USD 500, which is about 2.3 million South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) at current exchange rates. The worker says he is owed USD 25,750 (about 118.45 million SSP) in unpaid wages, including for August 2023 when no salary was paid at all. Yet in the payroll records from Juba, his monthly salary for August 2023 is recorded as USD 2,835 (about 13.03 million SSP) – more than five times what he sometimes received.
Another worker, who was supposed to earn USD 1,000 a month (about 4.6 million SSP), is claiming arrears of over USD 53,000 (about 243.8 million SSP), before accounting for any differences between actual payments and the higher figures shown in the payroll. The same inflated payroll figures appear in his case, with Juba’s records listing his August 2023 net salary as USD 2,835, more than double his agreed pay.
| Employee | Agreed Monthly Salary (USD) | Agreed Monthly Salary (SSP) | Payroll Record (USD) | Payroll Record (SSP) | Claimed Arrears (USD) | Claimed Arrears (SSP) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staffer A | 500 | 2.3 million | 2,835 | 13.03 million | 25,750 | 118.45 million |
| Staffer B | 1,000 | 4.6 million | 2,835 | 13.03 million | 53,000 | 243.8 million |
The nine workers allege that the embassy also failed to remit pension and other statutory deductions taken from their pay. Some salaries were allegedly handed out in cash on the few months that payments were made, without payslips being issued.
The case could test the limits of diplomatic immunity, which traditionally shields embassies and diplomats from legal proceedings in their host countries. The workers’ lawyer, Nicodemus Ouma of Cheboi Ouma Oriema Advocates, is relying on a 2020 ruling by Kenya’s Court of Appeal which found that diplomatic immunity does not apply to employment disputes, as these are considered private or commercial matters. That decision came in a case where former employees of the Swedish embassy in Nairobi successfully sued for wrongful dismissal, though it is now under appeal at Kenya’s Supreme Court.
Mr Ouma told the court that repeated written requests by staff to embassy officials for resolution of the pay dispute were ignored. He is asking the court to compel the South Sudan government to settle the arrears. The embassy has until 8 August to formally confirm its legal representation before proceedings begin.
