By Thon Jacob Angeth,
Secretary General of SSSU-U 2021-2022,
JULY 17, 2022 — Honorable members of parliament, the Administrative Tribunal, South Sudanese students’ fraternity in Uganda and the general public, I write on behalf of the Union Executive Branch, in response to legally incoherent and unsupported allegations of corruption and other misdemeanors that are contrary to the Constitution of the Union which are calculated to create long-lasting rifts in the leadership of the Union and to be used as a weapon to distract the Executive Branch from pursuing the student-centered developmental projects.
The impeachment proceeding is Constitutionally invalid as it violates the right process and the separation of powers, therefore, should be aborted with immediate effect.
1)  It should be noted that, in the history of the union, the parliament has and will never launch an impeachment proceeding against the incumbent president without the 2/3 majority members of parliament to vote in order to authorize such a fundamental constitutional practice to take place as per Article 69 of the Constitution. it’s very pertinent to have a majority vote in the parliament before taking up an impeachment proceeding, which has not been done in the Union parliament and it should be in a floor-vote strategy to avoid biases in the process. For purposes of record, there were only 16 members who attended consultative meetings online out of 122 members of parliament and of which 11 of them voted in favor of the impeachment, 4 declined and one non-delegate hence the move is branded illegitimate.Â
2)  Be legally awakened in this Broad day light by this Article that, the speaker Mamouch Deng Nyang is illicitly determined to intentionally and unconstitutionally reverse the results of the democratically and fairly conducted election by taking an unpopular path of sectarian divisionism of the Union leadership through impeachment and this is incoherent with the preamble of the constitution that ‘we the people of South Sudanese Students’ Union in Uganda recalling our history that was characterised by oppression and discrimination, recognizing our struggle against the forces of tyranny, oppression and exploitation come together to change the past history through unity, togetherness and equal treatment of others as South Sudanese’. It should be noted that such baseless impeachment threats are a detriment as they deprive the Union Citizenry of their democratic choice and agenda. On the face of it, the impeachment inquiry or consultation has been conducted in a legally impaired and unpopular manner as it violates the fundamental doctrines of fairness, impartiality and constitutionality entrenched in the history of the Union Constitution and for that reason, the latter is tainted with biasness, impropriety, illegality and above all, its legally impaired beyond reasonable doubt and this is based on the fact that Article 69(4),(5) of the Constitution provides that ‘a vote of no confidence in the president-or-Executive shall require a petition signed by more than half of the members of the council to the Speaker and the vote of no confidence shall be carried out if at least two-thirds majority of the members of the council voted respectively. Under Article 69, such a number of MPs cannot authorize the impeachment process as it lacks the necessary authorization impeachment proceeding. Being an unprecedented move, it has destroyed the integrity of the process.
3)  The Speakers’ chambers and the Anti-corruption committee failed to provide any evidence regarding the corruption scandal to the Administrative Tribunal of the Union leadership, yet such evidence is supposedly disposed to the outskirts of the Tribunal, public domain and students’ fraternity. Article 42 of the Constitution of South Sudanese Students’ Union in Uganda 2016 provides that, ‘the Tribunal has an unlimited original jurisdiction and shall hear cases of all nature’. Article 41(1)(b) further asserts that the ‘Administrative Tribunal shall adjudicate matters brought before it in the most efficient way which relates to the Union and under Clause (1) subsection (f) of the same Article, the Administrative Tribunal shall administer substantive justice without regards to technicalities. In relation to the above, the house has failed to produce witnesses to the scandal with admissibility of the testimony and evidence before the Tribunal. Failure to fulfill all these requirements make the aforementioned impeachment proceeding a one-sided effort and unconstitutional exercise in the political corridors of the Union leadership.
4)   There was no committee formed to inquire into the matter of the corruption scandal and the impeachment proceedings in order to evaluate whether there is a clear ground for impeachment especially on corruption charges such as the Anti-corruption committee under Articles 62 and 63 but rather, ‘the Speaker was the committee and the committee was him’ and the two were inseparable. Such a practice exposes the lack of constitutional basis of the latter and it’s founded on inappropriate grounds since it’s based on falsehood.
5)  To point to the gist of the matter, the impeachment procedure was conducted in secrecy contravening Article 69 of the Constitution. It was just a meeting of 16 friends to discuss the issues regarding their friendship because to discuss Union affairs, the prerequisite is the attendance of 2/3 majority in a meeting as provided under Article 45 of the Constitution. And time given for the debate wasn’t enough to undoubtedly and exhaustively complete the discussion. Therefore, it is a frivolous and vexatious claim as it violated the civil liberties and the separation of powers by threatening the Executive Branch on unfounded claims under the constitution which is inconsistent with the rule of law and the Constitution in its entirety. And that being a dangerous path, the Executive wing is triggered to politically awaken the public domain to raise their political antenna to detect the illicit intentions of Mr. Mamouch who is determined to pursue a dangerous course of depriving students in Uganda of the president they have freely chosen with a groundbreaking percentage of votes. This was evidenced from the onset of this leadership and before the leadership was inaugurated Mr. Mamouch Deng was quoted in one of his political corridors in Kampala that ‘he is determined to impeach His excellency Gum Beny Machar once ushered into power as the Speaker just because they hailed from a different political camp’. Such an ultra vires act violates Article 70 in regard to the code of conduct and the person shall be subject to investigation and Article 71 provides that a member found guilty shall be subjected to dismissal, restitution and suspension. Above all the speaker is politically malnourished, misinformed and under the patronage of the former Union president His Excellency Deng Bona who is using the Speakers’ chambers to advance his political interest of stagnating any developmental project in Gum’s tenure in order to politically tear the Union apart. I appeal to the public, MPs and Administrative tribunal of the Union to treat such a frivolous claim with the contempt it deserves as this unconstitutional move presents grave threats to our constitutionalism and hard-earned democratic institutions since it will set a bad precedent in the history of the mighty Union.
From the onset of the Leadership, Gum Beny Machar has done all it takes to be accountable and transparent to the Union institutions because under Article 1 of the SSS-U Constitution, provides that the constitution is the supreme legal instrument governing the rights, powers, roles, duties and processes incidental to it. Previously, the president has been and is currently in Juba, the capital of South Sudan with approval by the Executives under Article 10 of the Constitution and this is to ensure that the proposed peace conference project becomes a success in Uganda in order to achieve the Union objectives as provided under Article 2 (1) and (2) of the Constitution of SSS-U. its provided-on record that President Gum Beny Machar has won the accolade of transparency, accountability and nobility in the leadership compared to his predecessor Deng Bona, who is the mastermind and the patron of the unconstitutional Impeachment movement. Notably, the political prostitute and incapacitated disgraceful individuals in the personalities of Honourable Mamouch Deng Nyang and Dhel Diing Nhial and the cohorts such as Honourable Alier Makoi Achuoth should be informed that Union isn’t a profit-making asset for self-enrichment at the detriment of the students in Uganda. The latter (Dhel Diing Nhial) and all those who submitted their resignation letters to the President were previously respectfully harbored by the President in his political camp but they sold their integrity by partying ways with the President when they realized that the President was not calculatively satisfying their selfish needs of offering money. It is pertinent to note that their resignation was unconstitutional as they didn’t follow up the necessary steps required by the Constitution as per Article 57.
The President coherently adhered to his political doctrine and he is remarkably quoted to have asserted during inauguration that ‘I came to serve students’ fraternity in Uganda and if any delegate, Executive or advisor where Dhel Diing Nhial emanates, joined the Union leadership with the illicit intentions of fraudulently enriching himself/herself, then, I will not be in harmonious working relationship with you’. It is fathomable that Honourable Mamouch and Dhel’s defection was expected as they are in the vicious cycle of pursuing illicit intentions of obtaining money through dubious means by threatening the president with impeachment articles but that’s unconstitutional and unacceptable in the scale of the Union justice system hence it is a miscarriage of rule of law and the impeachment trial should be aborted with effect immediately.
In relation to the above, Honourable Dhel Ding Nhial, the politically incapacitated delegate patronized by Mamouch Deng previously hijacked the positive sympathetic presidential gesture of financially supporting many vulnerable south Sudanese students from all the constituent universities who lost the little grain of hope to graduate since they are financially incapacitated. Fortunately, with the constitutional support from the members of good will, the initiative was a success as it was categorized under Article 11(4) of the Constitution. In the process of dispensing and extending financial help to Finalists a total of 30 financially needy students were saved from the financial vulnerability that would have resulted in missing the fundamental institutional graduation. This was an esteemed political gesture of humanity exhibited by president Gum and that was a signal that ‘UNION’ was born again and designated to attain salvation under the auspices of His excellency Gum Beny Machar. A right-thinking member of the community may vividly question the agenda spearheaded by the two frustrated Honorables (Dhel Diing and Mamouch Deng) and their cohorts. They are determined not to see any progress in serving the students’ fraternity in Uganda and to take a dangerous course of dividing the leadership to fail the regime but that’s unacceptable because regime has support from the majority of the members of parliament hence the impeachment trial is a two-member movement patronized by a political prostitute and disgraceful political ghost.
The members of the parliament and the entire public should be informed that the Speaker and his cohorts are determined to fabricate or create false versions of the Union affairs in order to gain cheap popularity and this masterpiece should be a whistleblower and a wakeup call to defend democracy and constitutionalism. Honorable Speaker Mamouch Deng was previously involved in a corruption scandal of 5,000 US Dollars that he dishonestly scammed from his uncle Honorable Gabriel Changson Chang, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology in the name of the Union leadership, and it’s on record that he didn’t unveil this money to the Union Secretary of Finance Honorable Changkuoth Samuel Manyuon to be deposited in the Union Account contrary to Article 61 of the Constitution thus it’s a disgrace to a person in the dignified and esteemed position of Speaker. As if that was not enough, the speaker errored in both law and fact as he appointed non-delegates by the names of AJAH TABITHA and LUK YIEY (KIU STUDENTS) into the Anti-corruption and Auditing committees respectively contrary to contrary to Article 62. I, Thon Jacob Angeth, General Secretary of South Sudanese Students’vUnion in Uganda Thon Jacob Angeth, as the sole constitutional custodian of valid Union documents perused through the legitimate documents of the Union but the aforementioned names weren’t reflected anywhere and such an erroneous act makes the impartiality of the two fundamental chambers of the Union questionable in the eyes of the right-thinking members and above all Articles 62 and 64 should be read in conjunction with Article 39(4) which asserts that the council shall be responsible for the formation of the parliamentary committees. This assertion points to the fact that the speaker has the constitutionally mandated discretionary powers to appoint the members of the council into the respective chambers and present them before a council in the first parliamentary session to be approved, in order to avoid legal irregularities before they are officially sworn in.
Be as it may, the Speaker has taken the law to his own hands because he doesn’t recognize and observe the relevance of the Union institutions as he acquired the Stamp through dubious mechanisms such as forgery of a stamp. It was not approved by the parliament which is in contravention with principles of natural justice enshrined in the Union Constitution. If the speakers’ chambers deem it appropriate to have an official seal, then the procedure of acquisition should be legally binding and recognised. The Speaker has no constitutional Authority at his discretion to process and forge such a critical, fundamental legal creature and document of the South Sudanese Students’ Union in Uganda without the consent and approval by the council because under Article 39(1) of the Constitution ‘the Council is the supreme body of the Union in decision making regarding any affair or policy’ and it entrenches every constitutional undertaking to be done in the best interest of the Union. All these corroborated and well-founded claims against Honourable Speaker depict and unveil his politically impaired agenda and what he stands for hence the public domain and the members of parliament in the Union leadership should earmark the unconstitutional moves of the speaker and his cohorts, as they are tainted with biasness, irregularity and impropriety.
For the reasons alluded to, the entire Leadership under H.E. Gum Beny Machar willingly rejects the baseless and unconstitutional claims made by the Speaker and his cohorts to overturn the fundamental democratic pillar exercised by the delegates who ideologically voted for Gum. Given that the inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it because participating in it would inflict lasting institutional harm on the Executive branch and therefore the president cannot allow the constitutionally illegitimate proceedings to distract him and those in the Executive Branch from serving the students’ fraternity because he was overwhelmingly voted by the delegates to serve the students’ fraternity.
YOUR REGARDS.
…………………………………
THON JACOB ANGETH
SECRETARY GENERAL OF SSSU-U 2021-2022
CC: AMBASSADOR H.E SIMON DUKU
CC: EDUCATION ATTACHEE
CC: PRESIDENT SSS-U 2021-2022
CC: SECRETARY LEGAL AFFAIRS SSS-U 2021-2022
CC: SPEAKER/PARLIAMENT
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