The spokesperson of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) on Friday denied media reports that the House summoned the chairperson of the Government’s Economic Cluster, Vice President James Wani Igga, to answer questions about hunger in Unity State’s Mayom County and across South Sudan.
On 8 May, Radio Tamazuj published a news story that quoted the Chairperson of the Specialized Committee for Information in the (TNLA), Oliver Mori Benjamin, saying the House had resolved to summon officials including Vice President James Wani to explain what they were doing to address hunger in Mayom County and South Sudan as a whole.
However, in a sudden turn of events, Mori on Friday morning reversed his earlier statement that Wani was among those summoned by parliament. He now says that the ministers in the cluster will be the ones to appear in the House.
“The chairpersons of the clusters are actually overseers to the respective ministries under them and they do not have executive powers and if there is anything, it is the minister concerned in that cluster to answer in parliament. So, the parliament did not summon the vice president in charge of the economic cluster on the basis that he is part of the collegial presidency and he does not have executive power over the ministers performing their duties,” he explained. “No vice president has got an accounting officer but for the ministers in any ministry, there is an undersecretary who is the accounting officer. For any shortcoming, the minister will ask the undersecretary to explain. Even in the budget process, it is the undersecretary who is the accounting officer who appears in parliament in support of the minister but not the chairperson of the economic cluster.”
According to Mori, parliament can summon anybody except the president.
“In any case, any institution that is set up by the agreement is above the constitution and this is how we are dealing with issues here now in the parliament until this agreement comes to an end by the elections and we hope the parties to the agreement will agree upon when the elections will be run,” he added.
The issue arose during parliament’s regular sitting on Tuesday after Stephen Bol, a SPLM-IO Member of Parliament representing Mayom County in Unity State tabled an urgent motion about looming hunger in his constituency. After deliberating on the motion, the House decided to summon Vice President Wani and members of the economic cluster that he heads.
Radio Tamazuj however stands by our story which correctly quoted Mori saying that the House had resolved to summon the Government’s Economic Cluster and its head, Vice President James Wani Igga.
Interestingly, after the news story of parliament summoning Vice President Wani was published, the latter’s Facebook page known as “Office of the Vice President & chair of Economic Cluster” published a post saying the TNLA had not summoned Wani and that the media misquoted the parliamentary spokesperson.
“The Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan and Chair of Ministerial Economic Cluster HE Prof. James Wani Igga was not summoned by the Revitalized Transitional National Legislative Assembly. The media houses had misquoted the Chairperson of the Information Specialized Committee Hon. Oliver Mori Benjamin,” the post said. “The Office of the Vice President is part and partial of the Presidency and oversees the line ministries of Economic Cluster and Institutions. The Parliament has resolved to summon the concerned ministries under the Economic cluster and ministries responsible for humanitarian.”
Please find below the audio of Parliamentary Spokesperson Oliver Mori clearly saying Vice President Wani was summoned by the TNLA.