N. Bahr el Ghazal MPs reject interrogation over calls for dissolution
May 22, 2013 (JUBA) – Four members of Northern Bahr el Ghazal’s parliament said on Wednesday that they have rejected attempts to be investigated for allegedly making statements in which they called for the dissolution of the state assembly after some members had passed a resolution rejecting directives of South Sudan’s president to reinstate the former speaker and six other members.
One the MPs, Benson O. Malo, told Sudan Tribune on Wednesday that he and three others had declined to meet with a committee constituted by the state government’s chief whip, Daniel Akol Diing, to investigate them for making a statements calling for the dissolution of the house and dismissal of the state governor Paul Malong Awan.
The legislator said the other MPs who rejected meeting the committee were Santino Mayuat, William Wel, Isaac Makau Ayok.
Malo said the committee was being led by a Deng Ayom Ayom, who was being assisted by Majang Ngor Kuany, a former speaker and a current head of information and public relations committee of the state parliament. Other members include Nyibol Achor, Bul Bul Dor and Jok Lual, he said.
The MP said the committee is formed by those who should actually have been the ones to be investigated, if there was a system that checks violations and deviations from existing rules.
“We did not want to be part of the resolution and walked out because we do not have powers to discuss directives of the president. And because we walked out, some people feel we did not do what they wanted even though there was no basis. Now they have decided to form a committee for us to be investigated because we talked to the media. I don’t who gave them this authority”, Malo asked in an interview with Sudan Tribune from Aweil town, the state capital.
Malo was one of the nine members of parliament who walked out of the house in rejection of the decision which some members had wanted to impose to reject presidential directive to reinstate speaker Aguer Wol Aguer and six other members who were dismissed on allegations that they were collaborating with other political parties in the house against South Sudan’s ruling Sudan people’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
“If people are to be investigated, Akol Diing should be the first to be investigated because he himself insulted the president. He said if the president wants to reinstate Honourable Aguer Wol Aguer as the speaker of the house then he (president) should come to be the member of the house in which Aguer will be the speaker. Was this not an insult to the president? And if people are to be investigated for speaking to the media, will he not be the first to be investigated if indeed there is a system”, Malo asked saying he had refused completely to be investigated.
(ST)