The South Sudanese members of the National Constitutional Amendment Committee (NCAC) on Thursday urged President Salva Kiir to intervene and ensure their allowances are paid.
Addressing a press conference in Juba on Thursday, Ayuel David, the NCAC acting spokesperson, said they are concerned that since they suspended work in March, there has been no communication regarding their stipends.
The NCAC suspended operations on 7 March 2023 over the lack of facilitation of the national members.
According to Ayuel, the NCAC has presented budgets for the last three years but last received money in 2020.
“The NCAC has consistently followed up on the issue of payment through various government offices including the National Transitional Committee (NTC), the ministers of justice, finance, peacebuilding, presidential and cabinet affairs,” he said. “The first vice president in charge of the economic cluster (James Wani Igga) wrote directing the minister of finance to pay the NCAC dues. The matter of NCAC payment has been raised several times at the RJMEC monthly plenary meetings and resolutions were made for payment.”
“In all instances, the government committed itself to make the payment but unfortunately no payment has been made to date,” Ayuel added.
He revealed that the NCAC has completed the review of 18 amendment bills, including the Constitutional Amendment Bill, which have been submitted to the justice ministry but warned that their mandate comes to an end in May without achieving much.
“The NCAC mandate is set to expire in May 2023 without the review of important laws due to the failure by the government to discharge its responsibility of paying the national members their dues. NCAC remains committed to completing its work and urges parties and Stakeholders to impress upon the government the need to prioritize the payment of dues of the national members of NCAC,” he said. “We reiterate our call to the government to expeditiously pay the committee so that review of the outstanding laws can be completed to facilitate implementation of the Roadmap to a peaceful and democratic end of the Transitional Period.”
According to Ayuel, the NCAC still has to review some important laws including the Investment Promotion Act 2009, Telecommunication Act 2010, Transport Act 2008, Mining Act 2012, and the National Pension Fund Act.
For his part, Clement Juma, a member of the NCAC, said they have accumulated allowances amounting to over USD 1.8 million since 2020.
“From 2020 to 2022, there was a budget of USD 943, 140 for sitting allowances for members. Then we have the current 2022/23 budget that has not been paid and it is USD 928,200,” he said. “So, when you put this together, the dues that we are talking about is USD 1,871,340. For the last three years, this amount has accumulated.”