The residents of Namatina Payam in Nagero County of Western Equatoria have lamented the lack of basic services in the area.
Speaking at a public rally at the Namatina center during the visit of Governor Alfred Karaba Futuyo on Thursday, the payam Chief Terizio Ungele Zirari said the area was neglected, but hoped that the visit would mark a new beginning.
The Chief said Namatina lacked clean water, health and education facilities and roads. He also said the telecommunications network was poor, impeding the coordination between the payam and the county office.
Zirari said that the poor communication was a big threat to the local security as people could not be alerted promptly in case of danger and it was hard to seek reinforcement from elsewhere.
Women leader Veronica Ulongo said the Namatina women lacked the services provided to their counterparts elsewhere, disclosing that they conducted their businesses under trees.
“I would like to raise our voice as women. We assemble under trees to conduct our affairs and there was no indication of that changing soon. Our children too learn under mango trees, which affects the quality of their education,” she said.
The Governor promised to take action and deliver services directly to Namatina without reference to the county authority.
“From today, I have taken responsibility of Namatina. We will arrange services directly from the state level to Namatina,” Futuyo said.
The Head of UNMISS field office in Yambio, Jane Kony, said they came as government and partners to listen to the challenges facing the residents of Namatina and sit and decide how best to respond.
“I wanted to say that this is a joint mission of the government, humanitarian agencies, the development partners and ourselves as UNMISS to come to the ground, meet with the people, hear from the people and go back to the drawing board and see how we can collectively support the people of Namatina,” Kony said.