Jan 15, 2021(Nyamilepedia) — South Sudan is set to change its current local time zone from the East African time zone which is +2 to the Central African time zone.
According to the minister of information and government spokesperson, Michael Makuei Lueth, South Sudan will change its time zone by setting the clock back 1 hour on February 1, 2021.
“The cabinet came to realize that our current time zone is not our actual zone. We are in longitude 30 and the difference between Greenwich Meantime of the UTC and the longitude is every 15 minutes is one hour. So, we are in the 30th longitude and as such we are supposed to be two hours ahead of the Greenwich Meantime,” Makuei said.
“After the thorough presentation, it was clear that the far east is 2.4 hours and the far west is 1.6 hours. If you combine it will be 4 hours. The average is 2 hours. Therefore, it is passed by the cabinet that our official time zone should be 2 hours from the Greenwich meantime and that is from the 1st of February 2021,” he added.
The government spokesperson further said that South Sudan adopted the current time zone from Sudan before independence, and even after independence, South Sudan maintained the time although Sudan already changed its time zone.
That means South Sudan will from February operate using UTC+2 and not UTC+3 as has been the case, an hour behind East African Time.
“So, if you come to work at 6 am now, you will come at 7 am and 7 am will be our new 6 am,” Makuei explained as he noted that 6 am was still too dark in the country.
After the change is effected, the country will share the same time zone with neighboring Sudan, Chad, and Egypt.
