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South Sudan president suspends Vice President in massive re-shuffle to combat creeping corruption
South Sudan President Salva Kiir has suspended his entire cabinet and vice president in the largest reshuffle in the history of the two-year-old nation, the former information minister told reporters Tuesday.
“President Kiir wants to make a major reshuffle, so from the vice president downwards, all national ministers and deputy ministers have been removed,” said Barnaba Marial Benjamin, who until his suspension Tuesday was the information minister and government spokesman.
Those removed include the vice president, Riek Machar, as well as Pagan Amum, the secretary-general of the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Many of the ministers were key figures in the rebel SPLM or its armed wing that fought the 1983-2005 war against the government in Khartoum, which led to a 2011 referendum in which South Sudan voted overwhelmingly to split from the north.
“Why should there be instability? This is a constitutional position… he (Kiir) is the head of the government,” said Benjamin, who said he was speaking now as a member of parliament, not as a minister. “It is his constitutional mandate to form and dissolve a government.”
Amum was also suspended for alleged “mismanagement of the party” with a parliamentary committee to be set up to investigate allegations, Benjamin said, without giving further details.
No replacements have been announced, and it was not immediately clear whether all suspended would be returned, or if new blood would be brought in to replace them.
“Undersecretaries of the ministries will be taking charge in the absence of the ministers until the time that he will form the next government.”
While Juba – the capital, has been rife with rumors in recent weeks about a potential reshuffle by Kiir — the move still took those involved by surprise.
“I’ve been told that this was announced on the national South Sudan television,” Amum told AFP, who previously led long running negotiations with Sudan at African Union mediated talks over a raft of issues left unresolved at independence.
“I understand, from the phone calls I have had, that I am suspended because of a number of reasons,” he added, without giving further details.
Last month, corruption probes were launched into finance minister Kosti Manibe and cabinet affairs minister Deng Alor, powerful leaders of the young nation. Dozens of generals have also been relieved of their positions in the past year.
Oil-rich but war-ravaged South Sudan, which gained formal independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, has been one of the poorest countries on the continent. It was left in ruins after five decades of conflict between southern rebels and successive governments in Sudan, with South Sudan now working towards nation building and healing a society scarred by war.
Source: AFP