Hon. Deng Dau should vacate our Parliamentary seat to avoid conflict of interest
BY: Anyar Matiop, JUBA; NOV. 27/2011, SSN; I would like to take this opportunity to air my personal views on the appointment of Hon. Deng Dau of Twi East Constituency, National Legislative Assembly, as the new Chairperson of South Sudan War Disabled, Widows and Orphans Commission. This appointment may be viewed as a reward to the people from whom the appointee comes from given the local perspective under which such appointments are perceived, but in the view of this writer and being a professional myself, appointment of personnel to various capacities of service is not by the virtue of representation only but by the ability of the personality to meet the challenges of a given office. While I am not inclined to comment on the personalities of my Honorable MP I have the right to oppose his appointment on the following grounds: Under the principle of separation of powers, it is clear that it is not possible to have a clear cut between the Executive and Legislature given the fact that our ministers are drawn among the members of parliament. However, though the law is silent on this matter, this should not be an excuse such that heads of other specialized independent institutions e.g. Commissions, should come from our members of parliament, it is a bad practice and no any form of good governance can tolerate it. Because if we our MPs who have specific responsibilities to discharge as legislature are to serve at any capacity, conflict of interest will arise and the public interest may be insubordinated to that of the individuals involved. Our commissions are special independent institutions which do not qualify to acquire the status of ministries but are important in the sense that they are catering for special interests in our country and, permitting them to be served by active politicians is an obvious compromise on the purpose for which they exist to serve. I wish to bring to the attention of my dear readers that the same way we cannot have active partisan politicians being heads of Electoral, Anti Corruption and Human Rights Commissions just to name a few, we cannot have them at any of our Commissions. These institutions are left to highly qualified, experienced men and women of high integrity who have no political inclination so that they can discharge their duties independently and without fear or favor, such people do not always rely on the appointing authority for job security but their competence and integrity. The best example of this category of people is the current Chairperson of Law Review Commission. Prof Akolda M. Tier, a renowned professor of law who has taught for more than four decades. While Hon. Deng had scored some successes at the Commission as its first Chairperson and being a war disabled himself who knows what it takes to be a war disabled, he deserves heading the Commission. However, it is visible that Hon. Deng Dau will be influenced by his political career and job security and not the needs of the war disabled, widows and Orphans. Hon. Deng Dau appointment to the Commission he had served early especially during its inception as the first Chairperson of the said Commission made a come-back as a Member of Parliament representing the people of Twi East County, this writer considers this new assignment as a vacation of our parliamentary seat in the Assembly. As people of Twi East our voices must be heard in parliament when national matters are at stake and given the new position of our MP, our voices will be obviously silent owing to the fact that this is a full time assignment. Hon Deng should tell the people of Twi East why he decided to vacate our seat in Parliament, is it because our parliamentary seat does have the luxurious V8 which the Commission has? Hon. Deng Dau should realize that when he was voted against late Philip Chol Biowei (RIP), it was not for the purposes of coming back to the same Commission he had served early otherwise the likes of Isaiah Chol Aruai and Jurkuch Barach of National Bureau of Statistics and Demining Authority respectively, should have contested. But to represent the interest of the people who voted for him in the Assembly now that he has a new assignment, our Hon MP should resign our seat so that we give it to a son or daughter of Twi East who will not betray us because of a selfish interest. Hon. Deng Dau should tell the people of his constituency how he will serve them alongside his new job, being a full time and given the problems our constituency face which range from widespread insecurity, internal conflict e. g between Ayual and Dacuek, lack of roads, health facilities, education and matters of constituency development fund. Hon. Deng Dau's new job compromises his roles a member of parliament which include among others checking the performances of the Executive, legislation, fight against corruption, this is because while he will be expected to talk on behalf of his people, Deng Dau will be one of the people who the Law Makers would wish to check their performances and therefore cannot turn around and ask them to account to him. Hon Deng Dau should make a choice either to be at the Commission or Parliament and not the two at the same go. If he is so much for the lucrative chair of the Commission then he should go for it and leave our V8-less job alone, it is a job which does not belong to those who love luxury but available to those who can make selfless sacrifices. Hon. Deng Dau should come back to his senses and realize that it is only a section of the Twi East people who are war-disabled, widows and orphans and not all of us such that if he serves at the Commission he could as well be seen as serving us too. There is no doubt that Hon Deng Dau has proved right what I called a rumor sometime back then, that he was misled by his company into believing that if he became an MP would stand a lot of chances of being a minister. Now that the appointment of ministers is over, Hon. Deng went back to the position he held before last year elections. This is a clear indication that he did not have the intention of representing us at all but was using our parliamentary seat as a ladder to acquire higher jobs. Because of the above stated reasons, it is clear Hon. Deng Dau has let us down and held us in contempt since while he had our mandate as a Member of Parliament he was still a job seeker looking for Executive positions. Hon. Deng Dau, in my independent opinion, for the sake of avoiding conflict of interest presented by the being the Chairperson of War Disabled, Widows and Orphans Commission and a Member of Parliament representing Twi East Constituency, National Legislative Assembly, should vacate our seat in parliament if he is to serve at the commission. Anyar Matiop, a concerned citizen of Twi East, lives in Juba and can be reached at [email protected] Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author(s) and do not represent those of the website. -- 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]. 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