Sudan health minister reneges on surprise resignation – official

March 1, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s federal minister of health has reversed his surprise decision on Tuesday to resign from his position and returned only hours later to exercise his duties, a Sudanese official has announced.

Abdalla Tiya, who serves as a minister of health representing South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the government of national unity with the north, made a surprising announcement on Tuesday that he had decided to quit his job, citing claims of sidelining by his subordinates who belong to the ruling National Congress Party in north Sudan.

The minister declared his resignation in a press conference in Khartoum, saying he can no longer accept to be a “puppet” minister, and claimed he was consistently kept off the loop regarding decisions falling within the purview of his jurisdictions.

Tiya said he had only seen the appointment of the ministry’s undersecretary in media reports, adding that all the nominations he put forward for that position were ignored.

The minister complained of what he termed as “systematic marginalization” by ministers affiliated with the dominant National Congress Party (NCP) which he accused of seeking to undermine any minister who does not belong to it.

“I am the last to know what is happening within the ministry’s corridors,” Tiya said.

However, the state minister at Sudan’s council of ministers, Mohamed Mukhtar, on Tuesday said that the minister had retracted his resignation and resumed his duties immediately.

Tiya was appointed to his position in May under the power-sharing portion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 between the SPLM and the NCP, ending more than two decades of civil war between the north and the south.

The CPA is due to expire in July 2011 when south Sudan becomes officially independent as a result of the referendum vote it undertook in January this year.

(ST)