Futuyo appears before Parliament, finally
The Western Equatoria State governor, Alfred Futuyo, appeared before the National Legislative Assembly Tuesday morning to answer queries about pending salary arrears.
Futuyo was summoned last week to appear before the lawmakers to answer queries over the failure to pay the salary allowances owed to staff of defunct states.
He failed to appear in Parliament and instead sent a statement explaining his failure to appear before the House. To this, House Speaker Jemma Nunu Kumba vowed a punishment if he continued to defy the summons.
“There are some conditions that could not allow me to come and appear in the August House unless addressed or clarified, and all the arrears for the defunct states were cleared,” Futuyo argued in the statement.
“When I was appointed the Governor of Western Equatoria State and took the oath of office in June 2020, the money I found in the ceiling budget for defunct states was paid to them all for 14 months from July 2020 to October 2021.”
According to the governor, from 2021 to 2022, the budget for R-RTGoNU eliminated the defunct states’ salaries and only remained with allocations for Equatoria State and its 10 counties.
“From 2022 to 2023, the ceiling budget was also for Western Equatoria State, not defunct states, and was for paying the civil servants as stipulated in the ceiling budget,” Futuyo said.
He said the state government is instead demanding SSP8 billion from the national finance ministry.
He asked the parliament to provide a document showing that the money was released by the national government and that the employees of the defunct state were not paid.
