The Authority of Juba City Council is threatening to recruit South Sudanese as drivers for water tankers to replace foreign nationals.
The Council has accused water tankers of not obeying the calls to reduce the price of water supplies to Juba. This came after the price of water increased from one thousand Pounds to 1,500 SSP per drum of 200 liters.
Juba City Council says it has received complaints from citizens across Juba for paying the previous amount which they paid through the local order was issued.
Deputy Mayor Thiik Thiik Mayardit says he warned the water tankers to stop selling water at high prices.
He adds that the current economic hardship has nothing to do with common citizens and the government will take measures against those who fail to obey the order.
Thiik also urges the water tanker drivers to respect the law saying no one is above it.
He says the Drivers’ Union should register drivers and keep a record of alternative U-turns to recruit South Sudanese.
“I told them no one is above the law, and we cannot leave our citizens to keep suffering and we say we are their government.”
“If you don’t want to respect the order, we will immediately take those water tankers, we have enough drivers who can take the cars and sell water to our people with the rate we have made.”
“We are going to form taskforce who will be moving around to see if the drivers are selling water at the rate issued or not, “says the deputy Mayor.”
The Acting Chief Executive Officer Mogga Ngwangki Loki says they are going to enforce the local order on the water tanker drivers.
“First of all we are going to enforce the local order to those drivers, secondly we want to make urgent recruitment and registration of local drivers. Good enough we have a drivers’ union here and they should take note of that because those drivers are treating us like we don’t have drivers in Juba.”
He states that City Council will confiscate the cars and call the drivers’ union to take charge of them.
The chairperson of the drivers’ union Juma Kulang Laku says they have been waiting for such an opportunity from the government of South Sudan.
He urges Juba City Council to issue such an order and follow it seriously to ensure job opportunities are created for locals.
The Mayor of Juba, Michael Ladu Thomas Allah-Jabu, issued an order to regulate water supply prices in Juba on temporary measures till June 30, 2023.
He directed water suppliers to charge 800 Pounds per drum for nearby locations and 1000 SSP for not being close to water stations.