Last week President Salva Kiir, who doubles up as the chairperson of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), appointed Jemma Nunu Kumbo as the speaker of the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA).
The move has not only fulfilled the 35 percent gender representation at the SPLM party but also marked the stint of the first female speaker to take up the role within the country’s 10 years of independence.
President Kiir chose Ms. Kumba among the many nominees to head the (TNLA) due to the virtue of her previous leadership she exhibited through the times of struggle to the time South Sudan gained independence in 2011.
“I have a very long list. All of you (MPs) want the position of speakership and it won’t happen said President Kiir “We in the SPLM leadership thought we should have a person –you will not accept her- this is Jemma Nunu Kumbo,” said President Kiir.
Previous roles
Little is known about Ms. Kumbo’s personality. She cuts a low-profile figure who appeared in the media on rare occasions through her political career.
Ms. Kumba, 55, has consecutively held several key government positions at both state and national levels.
Ms. Kumba was appointed the first female governor in South Sudan in 2008 after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Before ruling Western Equatoria State for nearly three years, she was appointed a Member of Parliament in Sudan in 2005.
After losing in the 2010 general Sudan election to Bangasi Joseph Bakosoro, President Kiir appointed Ms. Kumba the Minister of Housing and Physical Planning in the Cabinet of Southern Sudan.
When President Kiir reshuffled the Cabinet in 2013, Ms. Kumba was among the first women appointed the Minister of Electricity, Dam, Irrigation, and Water Resources. Three years later she was taken to the head of the Ministry of Wildlife Conservation and Tourism.
In 2015, Kiir added another responsibility to Ms. Kumba, appointing her the SPLM Deputy Secretary-General to head concurrently with her role as the Minister of Wildlife Conservation and Tourism. There, she was the first woman to hold the prime party position.
Following the 2015 peace agreement, Ms. Kumba became the Minister of Gender, Child and Social Welfare and in 2020. She was later appointed the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs while acting as the Secretary-General of the SPLM until her recent appointment as the Speaker of Parliament making her the only woman to hold the position in the history of South Sudan in the first decade of independence.
Ms. Kumba, a graduate from the University of Namibia with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration, joined SPLM in the 1990s and later became the coordinator for the Sudan Council of Churches.