By William Madouk<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Central Equatoria State legislative assembly again suffered a snub after two summoned state ministers and Juba County commissioner failed to honor summons.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Officials who defied the summons included the minister of housing, land, and public utilities, Fred Laku Raymon; the acting minister of local government, Wayi Goodwill; and Juba County commissioner, Charles Wani Joseph.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to announce that the two ministers and the commissioner of Juba County did not show up, and the reason, I don’t know,\u201d said CES assembly speaker, Rt. Hon. Peter Wani Kulang.<\/p>\n But no information was provided by the three government officials about their absence from the grilling by the state parliament.<\/p>\n \u201cI called the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, who is supposed to communicate this, and I wrote to him officially to inform the two ministers and the Juba commissioner… but he never turned up, or he did not even pick up my phone,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The summoned officials are supposed to respond to questions about the insecurity and rampant land grabbing in Juba County.<\/p>\n MPs reactions<\/strong><\/p>\n The officials who snub the summons are likely to put themselves between rock and hard place as angered MPs vow to take stern measures against them if they fail to turn up on Monday next week.<\/p>\n Lawmaker Mary Elias said, \u201cWhat is happening to these ministers and the commissioner? Don\u2019t they believe in our capacity and capability for this house?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n “They are not listening to us; they are not listening to our leader of this house, calling them every now and then. Now it is our turn,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we turn in the wrong direction, they should not cry. We want some of them to cry,\u201d Mrs. Elias noted.<\/p>\n Jacob Aligo Lo-Lado, the chief whip for the ruling Sudan People\u2019s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party, moved a motion that the three officials should turn up next week, Monday, or the House would take a strict decision against them.<\/p>\n \u201cThese officials who absent themselves are ignorant of the fact that what the House is going to say is going to help them in their decisions regarding the same issue,\u201d said Lo-Lado.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that they are absent, Rt. Hon. Speaker, I am moving that. Let us give them Monday to report here. Failure to do so, any decision this House will take will be final,\u201d he echoed.<\/p>\n The speaker, Peter Wani Kulang, said if they (officials) do not show up next week as agreed, the House will impeach them, a motion seconded by all members.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they don’t come on Monday, consider that this House is going to impeach them all in absentia,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n Another MP, Uria Guya Emmanuel, who represents Morobo County, said, \u201cI think the absence of the honorable ministers on our call should be an eye-opener to us. All of us as members of Parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf truly this is their second absence here, we are supposed to take a decision. However, since we agreed to go on Monday, I know they will come because they want their seats,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n The chairperson of the Specialized Committee for Information at the Assembly, James Modi Lomidi, told journalists that the parliament will take a drastic decision if those officials do not show up again.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, regarding decisions of the House, members will sit, and if they fail to come, they will definitely take a decision that is in the interest of the public,\u201d Lomidi explained.<\/p>\n When asked what the House decision could be, he said, \u201cThere’s nothing in Parliament that you can preempt the decision of the House, because the decision of the House could either be a resolution or a recommendation for failure to have honoured the request of the House.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is one of the most important things, but I cannot begin to speak on something that members of this House have not stated,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By William Madouk Central Equatoria State legislative assembly again suffered a snub after two summoned state ministers and Juba County commissioner failed to honor summons. Officials who defied the summons included the minister of housing, land, and public utilities, Fred Laku Raymon; the acting minister of local government, Wayi[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-equatoria-state","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Gate-of-Central-Equatoria-state-legislative-assembly-premises-Photo-by-William-Madouk.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19022","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=19022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19024,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19022\/revisions\/19024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}