By Taban Tom Henry
The new speaker in the Eastern Equatoria State transitional legislative Assembly; Charles Udwar Ukenyi takes oath of office on Monday April 8th 2024 in Torit.
The Eastern Equatoria State speaker of the Transitional Legislative Assembly is second speaker after Severino Maira Janus who was appointed after the 2018 Revitalize Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict in the Republic South Sudan.
The new speaker; Charles Udwar Ukenyi in his inaugural speech pledges to uphold the principles of open dialogue and inclusivity.
He urges legislators to contribute respectively to the legislative process of the parliament.
“As your speaker I pledge to uphold the principles of open dialogue and inclusivity, this assembly is the platform for the diverse voices to be heard representing the rich tough history of our communities. My commitment is to ensure that every member has the opportunity to contribute respectively to the legislative process of the parliament
The Eastern Equatoria State governor Louis Lobong Lojore directs the parliament to collaborates with the executives in order to mobilize resources locally.
“For the new speaker I welcome you and congratulates your party for choosing you to lead this time the issue of the challenges which have been mentioned by the deputy speaker which also the many people may attributed to the former speaker is not the problem of Eastern Equatoria or of the speaker or the governor it is the general problem of the whole country, delay in salaries, the issue of emolument is not within our capacity, the emolument of the constitutional post holders lies on the responsibility of the national government and it is the president is to ascent into law, I would like the parliament to work in hand with the executives on how we can mobilize resources locally,” he says.
The Deputy Speaker Betty Hope Awor advises the new speaker to prioritise transparency and accountability given meagre resources and the economic hardship that the country faces.
She added that the state legislative assembly has a lot of challenges like delay of salary delay, emolument act and lack of electric power.
“Given our meagre resources and the economic hardship that South Sudan is facing as a nation it is imperative for us leaders to be transparent to our own people, accountability and transparency is very vital because the reason we are suspicious of one another, then reason we are hearing a lot of rumours circulating on social media is because there is no transparency. We have got a lot of challenges in the parliament and one of them is the delay in the opening of the parliament, because of the renovation that is taking place, we have missed a lot of deliberations, we did not pass the budget of 2023-2024, we do not have the emolument act in place, we have a lot of challenges similar to the salary delay, the emolument act and lack of electric power in the assembly,” she said.