PARAMARIBO – Whenever the political parties that are part of the ruling coalition have launched their election campaign they use state employees to make propaganda. This year is no different and the state employees who are stationed at the District Commissioner’s Offices have already been deployed to carry out political duties.

 Several state employees have been given permission to sign the attendance lists before leaving their workstations to work elsewhere for the political parties. The state employees explained that they receive these instructions from their superiors. They receive their salaries at the end of every month although they were not at their work stations. Other state employees who have to do more work because of this trend have expressed their discontent and made it clear that state employees must do the work that they get paid to do and nothing else. They also made it clear that the political parties must pay these people from their own funds and that they must not spend the taxpayers’ money on their recruits. Reports indicate that the state employees who work for political parties during business hours receive a higher salaries than their coworkers. Their coworkers who do twice the work for even less money complained that this unfair situation is demotivating them. Meanwhile the work that must be done is piling up at several ministries which means that the citizens who go to these ministries have no other choice than to wait several months for their papers to be processed. For now the state employees are focused on promoting their political parties instead of doing the work that they were hired to do. Many citizens complained that they would have to wait until after Election Day for their papers to be processed by these state employees…[+]