By Philip Buda Ladu<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) has unanimously passed the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Bill 2024 from its third and final reading stages, awaiting the president’s assent into law.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n With the passing of this bill, once signed by the president, the \u201cSouthern Sudan Center for Census, Statistics, and Evaluation Act 2011 has been repealed.<\/p>\n The purpose of the NBS bill is to provide for the continuity and governance of an independent public institution to be known as \u201cThe National Bureau of Statistics.\u201d<\/p>\n The bureau shall collect, compile, analyze, publish, disseminate, and archive statistical information on economic, social, demographic, environmental, general activities, and conditions of the people, as well as evaluate the social impacts of public policies, projects, and programs and any related matters.<\/p>\n Furthermore, it shall be responsible for the coordination of the national, regional, and international statistical systems.<\/p>\n The bill was first tabled to parliament in 2015 by the late Paulino Wanawilla, the former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.<\/p>\n However, the Committee for Finance stated that its second reading was delayed due to the need to review it in accordance with the provisions of the 2018 revitalized peace agreement.<\/p>\n The National Bureau of Statistics Bill 2024 is amended to conform to R-ARCSS Article 1.19, sub-article 1.19.1.7, and Article 193 of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011 (as amended).<\/p>\n The bill consists of seven (7) chapters and thirty-five (35) sections.<\/p>\n Early this month, Rt. Hon. Jemma Nunu Kumba, Speaker of the TNLA, recommitted the NBS Bill, 2024, to the Committees of Finance and Planning. Public Accounts, Legislation, and Justice to incorporate any observation, recommendation, and amendment made by the August House during the Second Reading stage on the general features of the bill and report back to the House.<\/p>\n Suzan Thomas, the deputy chairperson of the Specialized Committee for Finance and Planning, presented the joint report of the committees on the NBS Bill 2024 to the August House in its third and final reading stage during TNLA\u2019s Tuesday\u2019s sitting No. 23\/2024.<\/p>\n \u201cI humbly urge the august House to deliberate and pass the bill entitled the National Bureau of Statistics Bill, 2024, in its third and final reading stage with all observations, amendments, and recommendations,\u201d she submitted.<\/p>\n Lawmakers thoroughly debated the general features of the bill.<\/p>\n MP Paul Jummy, a member of the committee, emphasized the importance of the bill.<\/p>\n He said this is the bill that will set records, documentation, figures, and focus, adding that without this bill, whatever they are talking about will never materialize.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk about finance, and everything depends on statistics, and this bill had been there since 2012; it\u2019s been overdue,\u201d Paul stated. \u201cWhat I urge you (MPs) to do is support it to make it because we\u2018re having a lot of problems in economics, and this is the only bill that can set us free.\u201d<\/p>\n “So, honourable members, let\u2019s pass it; let the Bureau of Statistics work; we don\u2019t even know our gross domestic product (GDP), our inflation rate, or our dead rate. It is the Bureau of Statistics that can do it,\u201d he lamented.<\/p>\n For his part, Changkuoth Bichiok, the chairperson of the committee of finance and planning, responded to MPs observations and queries on the bill.<\/p>\n Regarding the issue of the figures of amounts in the bill, Bichiok clarified that the figures were put in place after consultation with the bureau.<\/p>\n He argued that there should be a figure set there in the law that they need to agree to, as it will be determined by a regulation of the respective institution.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to be serious this time and say that each law should have a regulation because now they don\u2019t have one.\u00a0 So with a regulation, it will be determined that if there are changes, they can be changed from time to time, but otherwise, we need to have a figure in the document,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n After a series of submissions MP Mary Visensio Wani moved a motion to terminate the debate, which was seconded by another MP, Hon. Peter Lomude, and the house passed the NBS Bill 2024 unanimously in totality with the speaker\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n Oliver Mori Benjamin is the spokesperson for the parliament.<\/p>\n He affirmed that the members, after discussing the bill thoroughly, passed it from the third reading stage to the fourth and final reading stage with all the amendments, observations, and recommendations.<\/p>\n Among the most important observations was the issue of figures in the bill, which was mentioned.<\/p>\n \u201cThe house decided that the figures of South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) mentioned in the bill be will be taken care of by the managing board of directors of the regulations related to the bureau; this is because of the depreciation of the SSP,\u201d Mori noted.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Philip Buda Ladu The Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) has unanimously passed the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Bill 2024 from its third and final reading stages, awaiting the president’s assent into law. With the passing of this bill, once signed by the president, the \u201cSouthern Sudan Center[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":26923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26922","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\/2024\/07\/TNLA-session-at-the-main-hall.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26922","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26924,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26922\/revisions\/26924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}