The governor of South Sudan’s Aweil State, Jal Malith has issued a decree removing the state legislative assembly speaker, Deng Ayom, his deputy, Benson Upouth Malo and six MPs.
The decree, issued Monday, gave no reasons for the legislators’ removal. The six lawmakers removed include, David Puot Alic (finance committee chairperson), Salva Door Geng (acting chief whip and chairperson for physical infrastructure committee), Akot Kiir Ayii (MP), Kon Deng Chan (legal affairs chairperson) as well as the agriculture committee chairperson, Santino Mayuat Ngong.
The state assembly’s decision to suspend a household tax plan by the ministry of local government proposed in March is said to have caused the lawmakers’ sacking.
Lawmakers had argued that citizens were too poor to pay the tax.
The state government, in its new bill, proposed 350 SSP as official tax rate per household, an act opposed by the legislative assembly, whose members preferred wide consultations on the document to ensure that citizens are unaffected by the plan.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Tuesday, the sacked deputy speaker said the state governor had no powers to fire any elected lawmaker.
Upouth Malo said government consists of three pillars; the executive, legislature and judiciary, but no one was above the other. He confirmed that opposing household taxes caused their removal.
On his part, Santino Mayuat confirmed that trouble started after the lawmakers opposed the household tax policy from the state government.
“The policy was passed by state council of ministers before it was referred to the assembly for the last approval. The minister of local government was summoned by the assembly to bring the bill for verification and approval, but Aweil state governor stopped the minister from appearing before the parliament and instead tasked him to go ahead with the tax collection,” he explained.
The governor was unavailable to comment on the matter.