South Sudan became independent on 9 July as part of a peace deal between southern rebels the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP).

The agreement brought the SPLM to power in South Sudan for a six year period until a self-determination referendum, sealed southern independence in January this year.

When the SPLM began governing South Sudan as an autonomous region in 2005 its civil service was an amalgamation of its own civil service in the areas it controlled and the Southern Sudan Coordinating Council (SSCC) who were operating in areas controlled by the Khartoum government.

According to data from the Ministry of Labour, Public Service and Human Resource Development, 60 percent of the current workforce in South Sudan is unqualified and therefore unproductive.

To counter this the government has initiated a process of absorbing and reintegrating qualified South Sudanese civil servants who are returning from North Sudan as well as from the Diaspora into the nation’s civil service. All southern Sudanese public sector workers in north Sudan were relieved of their positions after partition.

On Tuesday, President Salva Kiir ordered the civil service to weed out employees who did not have the skills, qualifications or experience for the job they were in. Education certificates from Sudan, South Sudan and internationally will be checked as part of the process.

Kiir said the process should involve all levels of government from the national government in Juba, to the ten state governments of South Sudan as well as at county level.

With a tiny private sector, and some Southern Sudanese employed at international charities, the UN and diplomatic missions in the capital Juba, South Sudan’s government is nation’s main employer.