The Mayor of Juba City Council (JCC) has accused foreign businessmen, especially those who distribute water in tankers to city suburbs, of sabotaging and circumventing the rules and regulations laid out by city authorities.
Michael Ladu Allah-Jabu`s comment follows a strike by drivers of water tankers to protest what they termed exorbitant charges by the JCC to inspect their trucks.
Addressing the media on Wednesday, Ladu said he is surprised by the actions of the foreign water suppliers, especially the Eritrean nationals, who he said have abused the good nature of the JCC and national government.
“It is the first time I am seeing this happen in the world that a foreign business community can go on strike, can demonstration, and have a hidden agenda against the policies of the government,” he said. “With all the good gestures we are providing, they do not understand what we are doing for them or maybe they have a hidden agenda of what they want to do in this country.”
The mayor revealed that the JCC simply wants to conduct regular inspections of water tankers and the people who operate them to make sure they are clean and healthy.
“This happened when we at JCC wanted to carry out our normal ordinary inspection process. It is known by everybody that in our policy we inspect water tankers every 6 months,” he said. “We have to inspect the water tankers to ensure that they are clean from the inside and to ensure that the pipes that are used for pumping the water are clean.”
Mayor Ladu further faulted foreign businessmen for lacking any corporate social responsibility programs to improve the local communities, the economy, or the environment.
“I did not one day get any support from our foreign communities doing business in Juba City Council and yet they are working underground to destroy our social fabric, especially in the field of regulation, functions, and roles,” he charged. “They are working underground to spoil our policies and that is why they are ignoring our authority and then they run to other levels of government which have no responsibility in overseeing these particular roles.”