A senior official at Upper Nile State’s health ministry said he was detained at the state police headquarters in Malakal town for hours last Friday for rejecting a ministry’s new director-general.
Joseph Kuol, the health ministry’s director of administration and finance, told Radio Tamazuj over the weekend that he was picked by the police while at his workplace last Friday morning and detained for rejecting the new acting director-general.
“While at the OPD treating patients, a plainclothes policeman picked me up and took me to their office and asked me to hand over the defunct Central Upper Nile State stamp but I refused because there was no official letter requesting so,” Kuol narrated. “So, they kept me in for more than 8 hours since 10 am.”
The health official said he was being targeted because he rejected a newly appointed director-general.
“As the ministry’s staffers, we rejected the new director-general because he was brought from a different ministry, the finance ministry. But he was appointed because some individuals in the state government want to create ways for their agenda,” Kuol said.
Piot Aben, the ministry’s head for human resources, said: “We are still working but we are not cooperating with the new director-general because he is not from the health ministry. So, he is using his connection to the state governor to threaten us.”
For his part, Chol Atem, the state police commissioner, said, “Nobody detained him (Joseph Kuol), he was summoned on administration issues.”
Efforts to reach Governor Obudhok Ayang Kur and the embattled Chol Kuol were futile.