Juba, South Sudan
December 5, 2021—South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit has appointed a senior SPLM-IO official as country’s minister of mining.
In the decree read out on the state-run South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) on Wednesday, Kiir appointed Major-General Martin Obocha as the new mining minister replacing Henry Odwar.
This happens three months after Henry Odwar, the SPLM-IO ministerial appointee, resigned from the mining portfolio and joined Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual, who installed himself as the chairman of the SPLM/A-IO, replacing Dr. Machar at his Kitgwang base in northern Upper Nile.
Gen. Abucha, a South Sudanese American, who returned home to join the war, was the executive director in the office of the First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar.
Abucha also served as the SPLA-IO representative to the Ceasefire Transitional Security Arrangement Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (CTSAMVM).
According to the power sharing agreement, the minister of mining was among the nine portfolios allocated to the leadership of the SPLM-IO under First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny.
