The first deputy speaker of the Council of States, Mary Ayen, has said the council has been unable to provide for the wellbeing of the members since taking the oath in August.

Ayen said this during the presentation of the two constitutional amendment bills by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Ruben Madol Arol, at Juba’s Freedom Hall on Monday.

‘‘The money they had for the previous fiscal year budget was taken from the account of the Council of States by the ministry of finance, which has tightened their hands to pay their members,’’ Ayen revealed.

She is also the deputy speaker in charge of finance and administration at the council.

“People who work for public service understand what we mean because, by the end of the fiscal year, the legislature was expecting to receive the budget, but sometimes the money in the account is taken back to finance, so this is the situation,’’ she further explained.

Despite the fact that the number of MPs in the Council of States is small, she emphasised that their status is the same as that of MPs in the Transitional National Assembly (TNLA).

 “It seems like the finance department is not getting our status correctly. And issues to do with budget and other concerns, we do sit at the legislature with equal status but there are things that we feel that the council of states is badly discriminating against, like our money for the members, including the three who took oath today; their money was swept by the finance”.

“I do sympathize with (some colleagues who took the oath) already, but we could not get them the money,” he added.

According to John Masuwa, a member of the Council of States, the lack of resources makes it difficult for the MPs to visit the states in order to identify and address some of the issues that they face, such as Western Equatoria’s case.

 “If Council of States is not properly given the right title as senate, the mistreatment we are talking about here will continue, although TNLA is known as the lower house and the Council of States is known as the upper house; this is not respected here”.

Ayen argued, “Because most of the speeches of my colleagues here are all related to the mistreatment in finance and elsewhere, it is not a new thing.”

In response to the national legislature’s financial difficulties, the Speaker of the Council of States, Deng Deng Akon, accused the ministry of finance of failing the house’s activities.

 “We were trying to be better from the start, but the ministry of finance is leading us down. The former minister of finance failed to communicate with us and we hope the new minister may work with us and our problem will be addressed. “

He revealed that they gave their members SSP80,000 from the start, when they had some money in the account, and pledged to do more in the future.

 “Our members are few and they [are] suffering, so bear with us. We are trying our best to solve your problem,” he urged the MPs.