S. Sudan president sacks deputy finance minister
December 2, 2017 (JUBA)- South Sudan president Salva Kiir has sacked the country’s deputy finance minister, Mou Ambrose Riiny Thiik, days after the latter admitted that the government had run out of cash to pay civil servants.
The South Sudanese leader, in a separate decree, appointed Athian Diing Athian as deputy finance minister to replace the sacked Thiik.
In both decrees, however, Kiir did not cite reasons why the deputy minister was sacked and there was a reaction from the finance ministry.
But sources at the presidency say statements attributed to Thiik, in which he admitted that government was out of cash to pay civil servants and yet it is able to pay up to $ 500,000 to a German company whose system it uses to produce passports and national identification cards for South Sudan nationals.
The ex-finance ministry official wondered why the government, through the interior ministry’s department of nationality and migration continues to pay $500,000 to a German entity for a system it should have procured and take ownership of.
Other sources at the ministry of finance also attributed the deputy finance minister’s removal to what they described as the “low-level tension” between the minister of finance, Stephen Dhieu Dau and Thiik, amid claims the latter was frustrated over the manner in which decisions were being made at the ministry.
(ST)