Speaker Blasts MPs over Reluctance in Drafting Bills
The Speaker of the South Sudan National Assembly (SSNA) has launched an attack on the legislators for being inactive in passing legislation since returning from recess last month. 20 November 2012 Speaker of the South Sudan National Assembly James Wani Igga. [Gurtong | File] By Waakhe Simon Wudu JUBA, 20 November 2012 [Gurtong] - Speaker James Wani Igga and his second Deputy Daniel Awet had been away for nearly a month and business of the August House was left to the third Deputy Hon. Fatuma Nyawang. In his first address to the House while chairing a sitting, Igga challenged parliamentarians saying they are not doing enough by concentrating on their roles in the House. The parliament had in recent days received public criticism over its reluctance. “My Hon Members let us also remember that this is actually a sole responsibility of each and every one of us to have business per every sitting,” Wani Igga told MPs while chairing the sitting since his return to Juba. “I do agree with this sentiment of course that we had not been busy enough. But remember since we went for recess most of the bills are not ready…so some of our bills once referred to the committee are not being reported back to the House per the period given to the committees,” he said. He blamed the Oversight Committees for the reluctance of the parliament, alleging that there were not enough bills and work presented by the Committees to the administration to come up with agendas. He said that the oversight committees are not doing enough in monitoring their line Ministries, supervising on how best they are executing the government policies - a role they are supposed to play. He told parliamentarians the two co-principles that the parliament’s business arise from are; legislature and process of the oversight committee. However, he said the legislation process solely comes from the activities of the oversight committees in pressurizing the executive or the line ministries over their duties. “Each committee has to identify which ministry it falls under. And it has to find out after every three months the committee has to bring a report of their sector to the parliament,” he said. “And if the particular ministry does not bring up their report, it is the duty of the committee to summon the particular ministry including the junior directors from the Minister downwards,” Igga said. The Minority leader Hon. Onyoti Adigo last week skeptically admitted there are weaknesses in the SPLM leadership as more than 90 per cent of the MPs in the SSNA are from the SPLM party. Onyoti said because of being from the same party MPs fear pointing out their weaknesses thus bar them from challenging the leadership of the August House. Igga has called for creativity and close observation of what roles to execute from the MPs in the House as they are expected to break for another break at Christmas time. “Please Chairpersons take this serious because in turn it is you to make sure that every member of the committee attends meeting you have called for and you should call for proper scheduled meetings,” he said. He urged the Chairpersons to make sure that members duly attend meetings and names of those failing to attend be reported to the Speaker to take measures according to the house business code of conduct,” Wani added. Posted in: Home, Governance, Parliaments -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
