Ex-Taban aide urges Kiir to dissolve economic management committee

JUBA – A former senior aide to South Sudan’s ex-first vice president Taban Deng Gai is urging President Salva Kiir to dissolve the Economic Crisis Management Committee (ECMC) saying it is not making any difference to the state of the country’s economy.

The ECMC was established by President Salva Kiir Mayardit in late August to improve the country’s economy after the central bank announced that it had ran out of its foreign exchange reserve.

Days later the ministry of trade said the government could not control foreign currency prices because it owes local companies and banks millions of dollars.

In a brief Facebook post, Agel Machar who was a press secretary for now vice-president Taban until the signing of the revitalized peace agreement questioned the role of the committee headed by senior government officials working in the cabinet’s economic cluster.

“What exactly is the difference between the R-TGoNU’s Economic Cluster and the Economic Crisis Management Committee? When both are led by the same individuals task to run and manage our economy in the first place? What will they do under a COMMITTEE that they are unable to do under a CLUSTER?” Machar asked.

Machar pointed to disappointment by a 2014 committee that was formed to look into economic crisis ushered in by the 2013 outbreak of war.

The committee was to be dissolved a few months later without crucial changes made while the Pound continued to lost its value.

“Once upon a time in January 2014, a certain Crisis Management Committee (CMC) was formed in the wake of 2013 civil unrest. The Committee was led by the same characters currently leading the Economic Crisis Management Committee (ECMC),” he said.

“By April 2014, the said Committee was hurriedly dissolved, its functions handed over to the presidency and multiple investigations produced reports that the concern authorities have in possession as we speak,” he added.

Machar further question “why do the same characters who were part of the crisis and are/were already dealing/managing the crisis under their constitutional positions need a Committee again in order to handle the said crisis?”

“The CMC ended up creating more complex CRISIS. Please dissolve the ECMC before it creates more complex and dangerous CRISIS,” he added.