President Salva Kiir has named Gen. Puok Koang as the deputy minister of interior, a position that had remained vacant since Mabior Garang De Mabior’s resignation.
In a Republican Decree readout on the state-owned South Sudan Broadcasting Cooperation, Kiir named Koang from the SPLM-IO as the new deputy Minister of Interior.
Gen. Koang was the commander of Division Seven of SPLA-IO.
Last year, after Mabior Garang’s resignation, the SPLM-IO leadership nominated Nyenagwek Kuol to fill the position, but Kiir reportedly asked Dr Riek Machar to withdraw her nomination.
Speaking to The City Review yesterday, Director for Information and Public Relations Puok Both Baluang said Gen. Koang was expected to take an oath yesterday as the Deputy Minister of Interior.
“This position is very sensitive because he will be in charge of security, and he will make sure that the security situation in terms of stability is fixed,” Baluang said.
“We have nominated a lady, Nyenagwek, to be the deputy minister, but the President rejected her. When Gen. Koang came in, we believed he was capable because he is a very hard-working general in terms of security,” he added.
In June 2020, Mabior resigned from the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) to allegedly protest the unwillingness of the main principle leadership of the agreement to implement the peace deal.
Mabior, who was Chairperson of the Information Committee of the SPLM-IO in June 2020, tendered his resignation letter to Dr Machar and later joined the Kitgwang faction.
In November 2021, Kiir sacked Minister of Interior, Paul Mayom Akech, who had served in the ministry after he was transferred through a Presidential Decree from the Ministry of Trade.
EDITORIAL NOTE: We made some corrections to this article. In our print edition, it was mistakenly reported that Gen. Mahamoud Solomon Agok was the one appointed to the position of the Deputy Minister of Interior. However, Agok is the current Minister of Interior and will be deputized by Gen. Puok Koang. We regret any inconvenience this might have caused our esteemed audience.