Members of Parliament representing South Sudan in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) are to form a committee to address the controversial recruitment to the East African Community.
Yesterday, the group protested the recruitment process saying it lacked immediate implementation of affirmative action to South Sudan as required for a new member state.
The committee that is expected to be headed by the Undersecretary for the Ministry of East African Community Affairs Andrea Malueth shall meet the Secretary-General of the East African Community Dr. Peter Mutuku Mathuki to address the issue of equal employment for South Sudanese in the regional bloc.
According to the new Chairperson of the Chapter, Dr. Anne Itto, the East African Community partner states are deemed to be properly represented.
“EAC is a community that South Sudan belongs to and we are concerned that if there is no justice, no equitable distribution of benefits to partner states; then it will not be worthwhile being members of this community,’’ Itto said.
‘‘We have the opportunity to influence the way this community runs. We must ensure as MPs that we do oversight and ensure that every partner state is properly represented but of course for us, top in our concern is, South Sudan’s benefits from their membership of being in the East African Community,” Dr. Itto added.
The former chairperson Thomas Dut Gatkek called for all the nine members of the Chapter to put aside their differences and unite with common interests.
Protest
South Sudan last week called for a halt in the East African Legislative Assembly proceeding after they claimed that the system of recruitment was corrupt and marginalizing. Uganda also supported the motion calling for the EALA to be paused for a while to discuss the bill concerning recruitment.
The Chairperson of the Uganda Chapter confirmed that Ugandan Minister for East African Community Affairs also called for the recruitment to be halted as a response to their South Sudanese counterparts.
According to the South Sudan Chapter, they were not given special consideration normally accorded to new members of the East African Community citing Rwanda and Burundi that were given uncontested positions to fill when they joined the community.
The motion on the recruitment bill was to be tabled yesterday for the issue at hand to be ironed out.
South Sudan Chapter deposed its chairperson after holding a premature election triggered by the differences between the chapter on claiming the privileges of employment in the EAC for partner states which were said to be in the treaty.
Several South Sudanese who applied for jobs that were advertised by the East African Community saw only 14 shortlisted and were to contest for the junior positions in the community.
A new chairperson, Dr. Itto was elected to replace Thomas Dut Gatkek who was the Chapter’s Chairperson.
Fighting for the cake
But when the Secretary-General of the East African Community wrote back promising affirmative action for South Sudanese, the chapter expressed even more pessimism.
On Sunday, Gabriel Alaak Garang told The City Review that the affirmative action was granted at the wrong time when recruitment was already ongoing, and there was no proof that there would be a special consideration for South Sudan in terms of the number of positions to be filled.
“To write it at this particular moment [is tough because] it has to go to the council; the council has to approve it and after all where are those positions that have not been advertised and they are being given to South Sudanese.
‘‘We thought that this should have been done from the beginning of the process,” said Garang.
Deng Nhial Gai reiterated that there was no ironclad approval to the request from the East African Community Secretariat.
“This is not the time that it should have been done. The letter is a request by the Secretary-General to the council of Ministers to request that South Sudan has requested affirmative action. Do we have a guarantee, an ironclad approval that says these are the positions that are going to be given to South Sudan? Therefore, you enumerate them as to when and how that is going to happen,” said Gai.