Two Jonglei state ministers blocked from taking oath
March 1, 2016 (BOR) – Two newly-appointed ministers in South Sudan’s Jonglei state were on Tuesday prevented from taking oath by members from the Duk community.
The Duk community chairman, Abot Awan, said the two nominated ministers were not proposed by the community and that they were asked not to take oath of their new offices.
“It was the policy of the communities to nominate their own people. We have prerequisite to nominate our own people but those who went there on their own, are not our people, they did not come through us although they are citizens of Duk. The governor has the right to nominate anybody, but he gave the chances to the communities to nominate people to go and work with him”, Abot told Sudan Tribune on Tuesday.
“The minister of agriculture talked to us, but he did not respect the community. He undermines the community and he challenged the community of standing,” he added.
But the state governor, Phillip Aguer, said on Tuesday that two rejected ministers were appointed based on their professionalism and could play key roles in his government.
“We use technical professionalism, you could see we have retained some of the people that were in the former government. But the community has a bigger say in recommending most of these ministers”, Aguer said Tuesday after others took oath.
“Somebody has to be recommended by the community, he must be somebody that has professional capability”, he added.
The governor, however, said he was optimistic that the two nominated ministers would be back for swearing in after they have discussed their issues with the Duk community.
Some sources told Sudan Tribune that the main complaint from members of the Duk community was unbalanced representation in the assembly. Following the creation of the 28 states, it was announced that each state must have 21 members of parliament.
In Jonglei state, 14 lawmakers already existed. Out of these, eight are said to be from Bor, four from Twic East and two from Duk. Seven additional members were to be nominated to complete the list of the 21 MPs for the state assembly. Out of the seven new seats, Duk was given one, while Twic East and Bor counties got two and four respectively. Duk has rejected this, demanding at least three of seven new seats.
According to 2008 census, which the assembly is using as the basis of seat allocation, Bor county had a population of 221, 106, Twic East 85, 349 while Duk county had 65, 588.
(ST)