Sudan’s civil service damaged beyond repair: NUP
December 22, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s opposition National Umma Party (NUP) has expressed hope that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) carries out a fundamental change to its strategies and policies.
The NUP’s foreign relations secretary, Nageeb Al-Khair Abdel-Wahab, hoped in a press statement on Sunday that the recent changes within the government achieves the desired results particularly with regard to non-politicization of the civil service.
Earlier this month president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir announced cabinet reshuffle that saw the departure of several long-time NCP figures from their governmental posts including 1st VP Ali Osman Taha, presidential assistant and NCP Vice chairman Nafie Ali Nafie and Oil minister Awad al-Jaz.
He criticized the recent cabinet reshuffle and said that it put the civil service under the supervision of inexperienced politicians, pointing that professional competence and not party loyalty must be the selection criterion for the civil service.
Abdel-Wahab stressed that the NCP’s empowerment policies have destroyed the civil service and led to serious effects on the society, describing it as a major national and moral crime.
He affirmed that civil service would only be reformed if the NCP pulled out its affiliates who gained their posts through the infamous “public interest” policy which targeted civil servants who aren’t loyal to the ruling party.
The NUP official further said that success of the NCP change strategy would be measured by deeds not words, adding that Sudan’s civil service could return to its previous condition if words matched deeds.
Sudan’s opposition alliance National Consensus Forces (NCF) downplayed the importance of the government’s shakeup and stressed that it doesn’t carry anything new.
The rebel Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) saw that the cabinet reshuffle brought nothing new and said that it only asserted Bashir’s overt control over power, stressing that the military wing has strengthened its grip on power at the expense of the Islamists.
(ST)