By Bida Elly David
A lawmaker at the transitional national legislative assembly has raised concerns regarding the mismanagement of the national flag by citizens across the country.
Rebecca Joshua Okwachi, the SPLM party chief whip at the national parliament, urges the citizens to respect the national flag as one of the national symbols.
She was speaking during the ordinary sitting yesterday on the deliberation on the National Election Act 2012 Amendment Bill 2023.
Rebecca said the use of the national flag as clothing by citizens does not reflect respect for the national symbol.
She underscored that the entire color scheme of the national flag has been wrongly printed by the nationals.
“I have observed and seen the way we are using and reflecting our national flag, which is disturbing,” she said. “It has colors that reflect very important aspects of this country.”
Hon. Rebecca echoed her concern about the blue color being printed differently compared to other colors.
She said the national flag seen these days in offices, on streets, and on T-shirts reflects a different blue color than what the real symbol meant.
The SPLM chief whip noted that the blue color on the flag represents the water of the nation, which is not supposed to be wrongly modified.
“Now our flag that we see these days is not the real color of blue. It is going too much to the dark blue color,” she said.
Moreover, Rebecca stated that the misrepresentation of the national flag color is a total violation of the image and dignity of the flag.
“I am raising this as a concern. Every time we have a celebration, we have different colors of our flag, and we need to look at it and use it in the right way with respect to the dignity of our country,” she emphasized.
Rebecca further noted that citizens have resorted to using the national flag on different occasions that don’t align with the interests and goals of the nation.
“We use it in different aspects, wearing them as clothes, as table clothes. I believe it should be very important for us to get the correct colors of our flag, and these correct colors are definitely there in our books,” she stated.
She echoed that the colors on the national flag are what the country stands for and are generated from the national identity.
However, Rebecca suggested that citizens need to be oriented on how the national flag is used, particularly the translation of the colors meaning.
“The way we use our flags must be known to the citizens: when do we use it, and when we do not use our flag as a symbol of respect, don’t we use it?”
The MP hinted that civic education concerning the flag colors will enable citizens to understand how crucial it is to them and the entire nation.
In October 2022, the ministry of foreign affairs discouraged some of the country’s missions and embassies abroad from using the wrong colors on the South Sudan flag, especially the triangle blue color, which should have been sky blue, but others used the deep blue.
The ministry kindly would like to advise the missions and embassies of the Republic of South Sudan abroad to correctly consider presenting all six (6) colors of our flag in the right way,” the foreign affairs ministry wrote to its embassies last year.
“Especially to use the right colors of the triangle with blue, that must be a shy blue (or light blue) with a yellow bright star in the middle instead of navy blue,” it added.