By Bida Elly David<\/p>\n
South Sudan national Parliament on Tuesday resolved to launch an investigative against Western Equatoria State Governor, Gen. Alfred Futuyo Karaba.<\/p>\n
The Parliament resolved to set up a committee, tasked to investigate claims of misappropriation of salary arrears meant for official of defunct states which were amalgamated to Western Equatoria.<\/p>\n
Though Futuyo on Tuesday appeared before the National Legislative Assembly to answer questions on the alleged mismanagement, but the legislators were not satisfied.<\/p>\n
In his defense report presented to the parliament, Futuyo denied any involvement in the purported misappropriation of salaries of civil servants of 32-state era.<\/p>\n
The governor defended his position that from the date of his appointment, salaries for Western Equatoria state civil servants have been remitted through the Treasury.<\/p>\n
“My government was paying all the civil servants from the aforementioned states. We paid them for 14 months, including their arrears for 2019\u20132020,” said Futuyo.<\/p>\n
However, Futuyo said that 2021\u201322 fiscal year budget affected payment of employees for the defunct states.<\/p>\n
“The 2021-2022 budget ceiling formulated by the national government excluded the 32 state salaries,” he explained.<\/p>\n
Automatically, the new budget ceiling affected four defunct states, Tombura, Amadi, Maridi, and Gbundwe States, which fell under Western Equatoria state.<\/p>\n
Governor Futuyo said about SSP 11 billion used to be remitted each financial year, but in 2019 and 2020, only SSP 3 billion was released.<\/p>\n
The governor told the Parliament that national ministry of finance has never transferred funds to the state government to clear arrears of employees of the defunct States.<\/p>\n
“Are the employees in need of money from me or are we the ones who want the unpaid balance of SSP 8 billion as our remaining budget ceiling from the government for paying our staff?” he questioned.<\/p>\n
On the integration of the employees of the defunct states, Futuyo said they have all been enrolled in the current human resource state file.<\/p>\n
He said that the state has completed the integration process of the defunct state civil servants and submitted the documents to the national government.<\/p>\n
However, Futuyo\u2019s frantic attempt to prove his innocence in alleged misappropriation hit snug as lawmakers claimed it never contained a gist of interest.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers advanced a demand for proper report showing detailed payments to the staff through a simplified payroll.<\/p>\n
Grace Abalang, an MP representing Eastern Equatoria state, criticized Futuyo\u2019s report, terming it unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n
“What happens in Western Equatoria State is different. The state is being run as a one-man show and this can\u2019t continue,\u2019\u2019 Abalang said.<\/p>\n
She stated that a neutral committee ought to be formed to investigate Futuyo without fear or favor.<\/p>\n
“The committee should be formed of the auditor general, the anti-corruption commission, and committees in the parliament,” Abalang suggested.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, John Agany, the chairperson of the specialized committee for information at the parliament, accused Futuyo of violating presidential orders by not paying employees of defunct states.<\/p>\n
The lawmaker agreed to constitute a committee comprising select members of the assembly, observers from the anti-corruption commission and audit chamber, to probe the governor.<\/p>\n
House Speaker, Rt. Hon. Jemma Nunu Kumba ruled that the committee will be formed within 14 days to conduct the investigation.<\/p>\n
The Parliament also prepares to summon the national minister of finance to get more information pertaining payment of salary arrears for employees of the defunct states.<\/p>\n
In late August, Richard K. Mulla, an MP on the SPLM ticket representing Mundri County in Western Equatoria State, raised a motion regarding the unpaid salary arrears of civil servants in the defunct states of Amadi, Maridi, and Tambura.<\/p>\n
He said the government employees had gone without pay for an astonishing 27 months, spanning from August 1, 2020, to May 31, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bida Elly David South Sudan national Parliament on Tuesday resolved to launch an investigative against Western Equatoria State Governor, Gen. Alfred Futuyo Karaba. The Parliament resolved to set up a committee, tasked to investigate claims of misappropriation of salary arrears meant for official of defunct states which were amalgamated[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Futuyo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17930,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928\/revisions\/17930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}