South Sudan presidency defends appointment of advisers

June 7, 2016 (JUBA) – The office of South Sudanese President, Salva Kiir, on Tuesday issued a statement in attempting to justify the appointment of 19 presidential advisers, asserting that it falls within the prerogative of the president to decide whether to make the appointments or not.

Presidential Spokesperson Ateny Wek Ateny said the August 2015 agreement did not say anything about the presidential advisers and that the issue was left to the principal leaders to discuss and reach consensus on the number of advisers during the transitional period of unity government.

The presidential aide argued that in absence of a provision in the agreement on the number of the advisers, the decision of the presidency comprising President Salva Kiir, First Vice President Riek Machar and Vice President James Wani, as the principal leaders should not be subject to criticism.

‘The decision of the presidency of the transitional government should not be contradicted by members of the Transitional Government of National Unity,” said Ateny.

“The agreement of the resolution of conflict in the Republic of South Sudan is silent about what number of presidential advisers should the president appoint. So it is the prerogative of the president,” he added, according to an interview with the United States sponsored Eye Radio on Tuesday.

He was reacting to comments by the leader of the Democratic Change (DC) party, Lam Akol, who described the appointment of the new presidential advisers as a waste of public funds.

Akol, himself a minister of agriculture and food production in unity government representing more than 18 political parties operating under the banner of national alliance, argued that the appointments of more advisers contravene objective of unity government to carry out reforms, including cutting down on unnecessary expenditures as part of the government’s efforts to address struggling economy.

“What will they do? This is just a waste of money. They are not coming to work,” Akol told the media on Monday.

“We in the interim government say we want to ease the payroll yet we contradict ourselves by raising the payroll for something meaningless,” he said.

President Kiir in May issued a republican order appointing 10 presidential advisers and later reached a consensus with his two deputies to appoint 9 more advisers from opposition political parties, raising the number to 19 advisers.

(ST)