July 26th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – A civil society organization, the Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ), condemned on Wednesday a decision by South Sudan President to pay MPs about $18 million for cars and other expense.
The payment by the President came few days after the MPs extended his term for additional three years ending in 2021.
In a statement extended to the Nyamilepedia on Wednesday, the CPJ executive director Tito Anthony said his group urge condemn the government and urged the MPs to return the money to the government.
“The Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ), condemn the government of South Sudan decision to give MPs money as car bounces and call on MPs to voluntarily refund the money to government,” he said in a statement he extended to the Nyamilepedia.
Anthony, said that it is a wrong decision in a time when the citizens are in desperate need of basic services such as hospitals, schools, shelter and food.
“I question the professionalism of our MPs and it clear that they are just a rubber stamp of the executive and can encourage corruption if the can be reward as what has been done now,” he criticized the MPs.
He said the MPs should first ask the government about where they got the money since civil servants have gone unpaid for many months.
“The first things MPs themselves could asked the executive, is that where do they get this money from and yet civil servant have gone unpaid for the last five to six month,” he said.
He accused both the government and the legislature of working for their interest rather than that of the people of South Sudan saying the money would have been used to rescue the suffering people of South Sudan.
“Money paid to MPs are a lot of money and they could be instead use to rescue that suffering population who some of them died of treatable such malaria and Typhoid because of lack of good hospital and medicine, or they could use it to build schools or purchase relief and distribute to the ordinary citizens whose his humanitarian situation is deteriorating on daily basis due to inflation,” he further said.
