Parliament waiting for go-ahead from President Kiir to start business

(radiotamazuj.org)

The clerk to the Reconstituted Transitional Legislative Assembly has said the August house is waiting for a go-ahead letter from President Salva Kiir to start conducting its business. 

Makuac Makuac, the Clerk to parliament, told Radio Tamazuj that they are more than ready to conduct parliamentary business and that they have two pending items on the agenda. 

“The first agenda will be the inauguration of the parliament, the opening of the parliament, and then the second one is that the president is going to deliver the keynote address to the people of South Sudan through the parliament. Those are the only two items on the agenda,” Clerk Makuac said.

On 2 August, hundreds of lawmakers to the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly's upper and lower houses were sworn-in in Juba but some members of the Other Political Parties (OPP) were left out due to their internal wrangles. 

The First Deputy Speaker of the TNLA, Oyet Nathaniel, said that ever since they were sworn in as members of parliament, they have faced a lot of challenges and that the OPP have not yet submitted their nominees to the house.

“What we still don’t have in place is the specialized committees, the chairpersons, and the deputies of the specialized committees. We are waiting for other parties to submit their nominees, they have not yet submitted their nominees to those committees,” Deputy Speaker Oyet said. 

He said that the list of SPLM-IO nominees is already with the leadership of the parliament.

“I was also informed that the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) recently submitted the list of the chairpersons and deputies for specialized committees. That means SPLM-IO and SSOA have their lists submitted to the Assembly,” he added.

He said that the OPP has not appointed and submitted a name for Deputy Speaker and a list for committee chairpersons. 

“OPP has not yet appointed a Deputy Speaker for reasons known to them and we are waiting for them to submit. They have not also submitted the chairpersons for the specialized committees and their deputies, we are still waiting for their submission,” Oyet said

Efforts to reach the spokesperson of the OPP, Albino Akol Atak, for comment were futile.

In May, President Salva Kiir reconstituted the Legislative Assembly, one day after he dissolved the 400-member parliament per the revitalized peace agreement and the members were sworn in earlier this month. The reconstituted parliament has however never sat to conduct business. 

The reconstituted house now has a membership of 550 representatives from the SPLM-IG (332), SPLM-IO (128), SSOA (50), OPP (30), and Former Detainees (10).