By Akol Madut Ngong
The Deputy Speaker of the Reconstituted Council of States Mary Ayen Majok has urged the National Constitutional Amendment Committee (NCAC) to draft better petroleum laws amendment bills while remembering the future, and not think only of the transitional period.
Mary made her appeal during two days consultative meeting of the National Constitutional Amendment Committee with Stakeholders on the amendment of petroleum Act, 2012 and petroleum revenue management Act 2013.
She said they valued all the contributions, all amendment that has been done, and “all participants may not wonder tomorrow when the bill is being presented to the national transitional legislative assembly for deliberation and ratification.
“I’m calling the National Constitutional Amendment Committee to sort out all those concerns, we have a call for the NCAC that the provisions are given in this bill and other bill” Mary Ayen said.
Meanwhile the Deputy Country Director of UNDP Ms. Christy Ahenkora expressed her happiness of being part of the amendment on the petroleum laws two days conversation, saying that is a good spirit of how rights are uploaded.
“I have note that it have been done in a very participatory way with good spirit to highlight and share a very specific activities and we are going to open and occupy the windows for beak up for comment,” she stated.
Ahenkora stressed, that in the interest and for the good of South Sudan, South Sudanese will continue to engage for the fact that at the end of the day when the laws goes out, that will not be bad, the various differences will be cleared.
However, the Deputy Chief of Staffs-Strategy, of the Revitalized Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC) Dr. Thomson Fontaine said, they want to note that implementation of chapter one article 1 to 7 of the agreement, that calls on the government to carry out reform on public financial management system to ensure that transparency and accountability in the country are respected”.
He added, that those who are aware of the responsibility to ensure the reforms, are happy to have been able to support the committee to carry on the work that had been suspended abide within the two months times.
Dr. Thomson said chapter four in the agreement is a question on accountability and transparency and hope that, those two bills will address those issues, just to note that every natural resource in the country need to be regulated for the public interest given a significant social, economic and environmental impacts.