By Bida Elly David
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management has called for the amendment of the NGO act of South Sudan.
This demand came following an ambiguity noted in the roles of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management and that of Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) regarding the humanitarian agency act.
Speaking during a consultative meeting held by the National Constitutional Amendment Committee (NCAC) on the review of the national NGO Act, Dr. Kot Bol Nyuar, the undersecretary of the ministry said although his institution is responsible for the entire humanitarian operations in the Country, its mandates has not been clearly defined.
“Indeed the whole role of the ministry of humanitarian affairs has not been clearly identified in the act. The ministry of the humanitarian affairs is the sole body responsible for the regulation of the entire humanitarian operations in the country, but their roles are not clear,” he said.
Bol said that the Ministry and the National Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) are one body saying that he was ignorant as to why the two institutions behaved differently when coming to internal issues.
He said that the word independent for the two bodies as cited by the act concerning the two institutions has contributed to real problem that couldn’t be clarified accordingly.
“Nationally, we see ourselves with RRC as one body but at times we behave differently,” he said. “The word independent which is cited in the RRC act sometimes causes problem on how we cooperate. Despite all these, we go beyond that because we are looking to serve our people of South Sudan” Kot added.
Bol further said that the law provides the relief and rehabilitation commission with operational powers to take humanitarian lead, but the policy also mandates the ministry powers to preside all matters pertaining emergency aid work.
He suggested that the act should be corrected or amended to clearly label the major roles played by the humanitarian ministry in collaboration with the relief and rehabilitation commission.
Few months ago, the Relief and Rehabilitation commission demonstrated lack of humanitarian support to extend assistance to the affected flood population in Upper Nile and other parts across the Country.