By Lodu William Odiya
The newly appointed Juba city Mayor Christoper Sarafino Swaka Wani has vowed to reform and create change at the city council.
Speaking during a swearing in yesterday Sarafino said he would bring in a small reform in order to provide services to the citizens.
“I want to assure you that with our coming, we’re going to make some small changes in the city council, so that the city council can be able to be responsive, can be able to collect the money that it’s supposed to collect, can be able to deliver the services back to the people” he said.
He said the council is experiencing challenges about the issue of waste management and cleanliness and sanitation in collectively the problem would be solve.
“If it’s about the poor infrastructure, the roads, about the security problems, economic hardship that the people are facing today in South Sudan, and Juba City is not spared from it. But I believe, collectively and responsibly, we can be able to respond to them slowly but sure” he added.
He assured the people that leadership is very cognizant of the challenges that the citizens are facing hope to end the challenges in a near future.
“With the team that we have, I’m sure in the near future we can see some very good milestones that we can be able to achieve. As it was formed in 2011, is very lucky to have a municipality” he said.
Sarafino underscored the municipality is very unlucky that it does not have a specific budget that’s supposed to help in responding to all the challenges that the citizens are facing.
“I had the privilege to be the second mayor of Juba, and since that time, the budget of city council is a budget that is forecasted based on the collections of revenue that we can be able to collect” he added.
“It depends on how the collection is done, and it depends on how effective it’s done, we cannot be able to deliver our services” Sarafino stated.
He underscored as leaders; they are not oblivious of the fact that the citizens of Juba have lost trust even in the leadership of the council.
“There are so many issues that are happening. If you open the radios in the morning, if you look at the social media, the city council has been accused of so many bad things. I want to assure you that what we’re going to do, we’re going to try and restore the image of this council” he explained.
Additionally, he stated that the council is going to work very hard to make sure that the its officials, the technocrats, the administrative officers, joined together so in order to give back dignity to the people who we are serving.
“Sometimes when I see the city council people coming with their uniform, I feel very agitated because of the issue of the lack of trust and the confidence that people have on them. But I want to assure you that this leadership is going to work tirelessly to ensure that we change that image so that the citizens of this country” he stated.
Sarafino stated that the council will come up with solid plans where they would achieve their goals in the next 90 days to 100 days.
“This one will be able to give us a clear path on how we can be able to tackle the issues that we’re going to deal with” he stressed.
“I want to assure you that we’re going to work very hard to make you proud. We’re going to make sure that, you know, what we have taken oath for today, it’s not just taking oath, but it’s going to be represented in the actions and the work that we’re going to fulfill” he underscored.
Christopher Sarafino Wani Swaka has been appointed as the new Mayor of Juba. His appointment by the Governor of Central Equatoria State was confirmed on Friday, October 17, 2025.