Central Equatoria State cabinet reshuffled

Malou’s dissolution of the cabinet comes barely a month after his appointment as Caretaker Governor by President Salva Kiir.

Central Equatoria State Information Minister Emmanuel Adil - who was appointed two weeks earlier together with the new Deputy Governor, Suba Samuel – said the new changes are aimed at boosting service delivery.

“It is meant to inject new blood to make sure we consolidate our talents and ability to deliver services,” Adil said.

The dissolved cabinet had been appointed by the long-time serving Governor Major General Clement Wani Konga in January this year. In August, Konga was sacked by Kiir, without any reason given. Konga had been well known for advocating federalism.

The names of the newly appointed cabinet are yet to be vetted by the State Assembly. Some of the newly appointed ministers are outspoken lawmakers in the State Legislative Assembly; Wani Tom Sebit, Dabe Francis and Oliver Mule.

A new start?

James David is the Executive Director of the activist organisation, the Foundation for Democracy and Accountable Governance. David underscores the appointment of the new cabinet because it contains mostly new faces and mainly youthful ministers.

“This Governor has got special regard to what we call the sunrise generation,” David said, adding “most of these ministers that were appointed are people that probably are less than forty years old. So this is a clear signal that there is a huge preference on the performance of young people in leadership in this country.”

“So this appointment should translate into effective service delivery. I expect that these guys who are coming in should not just be there as ministers sitting in their offices, but they should go running and improve services to the people of this State,” David said.

David said he expects the new cabinet to focus and address the main challenge facing the people in the State. “The reality is that there is a big threat to livelihoods and to the safety of the citizens of Central Equatoria in all the various counties. See the Kajo-Keji road two or three days ago there has been robbery, Yei road has problem, Terkeka road has problem that means that the government of Central Equatoria and even the national government need to take priorities to improve security.”

Agriculture and health services would also be boosted through free movement of goods and services in the State.

A string of reshuffles

But David is critical about the many reshuffles of cabinets in the state and in South Sudan, saying that it prevents leaders from getting enough time to serve and deliver services based on their new policies.

“In future we may need probably reforms. What does it take if a minister is appointed today then in the next six months or seven months he is fired? That means every minister that is appointed will only work under the pretext that you never know within a very short time you will be fired,” David said.

Since elections were held in April 2010, the cabinet in Central Equatoria State, other states and in the national government, including county commissioners and chairpersons of commissions, have been reshuffled more than three times.