South Sudan’s cabinet a burden to taxpayers – opposition leader
By Julius N. Uma
August 27, 2011 (AWEIL) – An opposition leader in newly independent South Sudan has warned that the country’s new cabinet could have grave financial implications on the country’s finances, given the large number of ministers.
Speaking the day after President Salva Kiir Mayardit officially unveiled his long-awaited list of 29 ministers and 27 deputies, Onyoti Adigo Nyikec, an opposition leader in the national assembly said the president should have maintained the previous cabinet’s size.
“The long awaited cabinet still leaves a lot to be desired. The huge cabinet will definitely force the government to expand its budget to meet the final needs of these constitutional post holders,” Nyikec told Sudan Tribune by phone.
According to the member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement for Democratic Change (SPLM-DC), South Sudan’s new cabinet should have comprised of “new faces”, accusing the president of simply “recycling his old guards” in different portfolios.
“There are ministers who failed to deliver services to the people in the previous government. Now that they have been re-appointed, I personally do not think they will live up to the expectations of the citizens of this country,” he said.
The southern opposition leader’s Nyikwec’s views were re-echoed by Alfred Sebit Lokuji, a renowned university lecturer and independent consultant on governance and development issues.
“There is nothing impressive about this cabinet. Almost old faces have returned. The new faces in the cabinet are accountable. I see Dr. Betty Achan, Agnes Poni, Emmanuel Lowila and General Alison Magaya as new faces. The rest are old guards,” he said.
“There should be no celebrations. Let’s first wait and see,” Lokuji warned.
REGIONAL BALANCE
Both Nyikec and Lokuji admitted that the composition of the current cabinet largely represented a regional balance, contrary to earlier speculation that the president was likely to appoint another Dinka and Nuer dominated cabinet.
“If you consider the key ministries like foreign affairs, defense, interior and finance, one will definitely see some element of equal representation unlike in the previous arrangement which was regionally imbalanced,” Nyikec said.
During South Sudan’s independence celebrations on July 9, Kiir pledged to form a regionally balanced cabinet as a mechanism to address numerous complaints from citizens. Kiir used his speech to emphasise the importance of effective service delivery and warned against laziness and corruption.
South Sudan officially became Africa’s newest nation after its population overwhelmingly voted for separation in a January self-determination referendum. The vote was a key part of Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended over two decades of war between North and South Sudan.
(ST)