By Tereza Jeremiah Chuei
The Minister of Parliamentary and Legal Affairs in Western Equatoria State, John Ada Wilson has accused the Governor of Western Equatoria Lt. Gen. Alfred Futuyo Karaba and the State Minister of Finance for indulging in corruption.
Ada said the State Minister of Finance has been cutting the budget allocated to his Ministry of parliamentary and legal affairs.
He now urged the National Finance Minister to transfer the budget allocated to his ministry docket, directly to its account.
He claimed that the state governor has a hand in reduction of his Ministry’s money, blasting the governor of de-campaigning SPLM-IG state officials in the public eyes that they are not qualified to serve.
Governor Lt. Gen. Alfred Futuyo Karaba was appointed to head the Western Equatoria State government from the ticket of SPLM-IO as in the power sharing Rivitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU).
However Minister Ada Wilson told No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper in an inclusive interview yesterday that the administration of the governor is involved in malpractices citing his ministry of parliamentary and legal affairs as a victim of the alleged corruption scandal.
“The budget of State Ministry of Parliamentary and Legal Affairs is twelve million South Sudanese Pounds per year, that means if it is divided by twelve months, my ministry is supposed to receive One Million per month unfortunately –“the State Ministry of Finance and Planning was remitting only one hundred and eighty-one thousand South Sudanese Pound (SSP 181,000) to Pay salaries of employees of my Ministry and sometimes they pay less than that,” he disclosed.
Meanwhile, the Press Secretary in the office of the Governor of Western Equatoria State, Alex Daniel Digi refuted the allegation saying that’s not true.
He argued that if the allegations were genuine then the Minister of State parliamentary and legal affairs isn’t the right official or minister to whistle blow against the governor’s corruption claims.
“Parliament is supposed to summon the Minister of Finance if it is anything to do with payment because the governor has nothing to do with payment,” he said.
“It’s also not supposed to be Minister or individual, its supposed to be Parliament, in case of anything the Parliament is supposed to summon the governor so that he can clarify and this would have come from the Parliament based on their investigation,” Alex ruled out the accusations.