South Sudan: Kiir Reveals Plan to Downsize Cabinet in Austerity Measure
10 July 2012
Juba - South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has revealed that he
will soon downsize his cabinet in the wake of the austerity measures as the
new country faces economic shock due to lack of revenues.
Speaking at the occasion marking the 1st anniversary of the independence of
South Sudan in Juba on Monday, July 9, 2012, Kiir said the country had run
out of money to finance the huge government, saying he will reduce the
number of the ministers in the cabinet.
The cabinet currently is composed of about 60 ministers and deputy
ministers.
The one-year old nation has shut down its oil production due to
misunderstanding with its northern neighbor, the Sudan. Kiir in his speech
accused Khartoum of stealing the oil which forced his government to shut it
down, adding that his country was looking for alternative routes of pipeline
to the neighboring Kenya and Djibouti.
He also said new refineries are being built in Upper Nile and Unity states
to serve the fuel demand in the country.
Currently South Sudan depends on money reserves which may finish in few
months, according to officials, forcing the government to introduce
austerity budget in the anticipation of the financial shortage.
Kiir however warned the people of South Sudan not to cry for tribal
representation when the number of ministers in the cabinet is reduced. South
Sudan informally considers ethnic and regional representation in the cabinet
formation, though some tribes always get the lion's share.
There were only 25 ministries when the government of the semi-autonomous
region was established after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement in July 2005. But the was expanded in 2010 when a ministry for
peace and CPA implementation was created with the ministry of investment,
Human Resources Development, Animal Resources and Fisheries, ministry of
culture and Heritage among others.
However, in 2011, some ministries were merged and others were abolished. The
ministry of Peace and CPA implementation affairs were dropped but the
ministry of culture and heritage remained.
However, in June 2012, a cabinet minister disclosed to Sudan Tribune that he
has been authorized to look at the structures of the government and provide
recommendations on how it should look like.
The minister on Monday said he was still working on the plan but at almost
at finishing stages. The president will be the first to look at it and then
the cabinet will discuss and refer it to the parliament.
The minister said he finished the overhaul where he indentified ministries
and commissions to which should emerge or be dropped.
"All the non essential ministries and commissions which were created for
accommodation purposes will have to go this time. The president has
approved," the minister told Sudan Tribune on Monday.
The president also reiterated his commitment to fight corruption which has
resulted to the loss of $4 billion dollars.
He earlier wrote a letter to over 75 former and current senior officials of
the government whom he suspected of involvement in corruption and asked them
to return the "stolen money." None of the 75 has responded positively to the
President's letter.
Kiir also surprised thousands of celebrators at John Garang's Mausoleum
during the same occasion that the long awaited creation of new counties will
not be possible due to lack of money to finance their administrations.
The SPLM ruling party has always been singing the slogan of principle of
taking towns to the people through the creation of new counties closer to
the people.
However, the government for the last six years has had huge number of
institutions at the national level while small at the base or local levels
making it difficult to deliver services to the grassroots.
Recently the office of the president had directed all the ten states
governors to present crooked maps and estimated populations of the new
proposed counties in order to announce their establishment.
Due to the lack of money caused by a combination of money lost to corruption
and the shutdown of the oil production which provided for 98% of the
revenues, the creation of the new counties will be halted.
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Tue Jul 10 2012 - 16:35:05 EDT
