Kiir pushes Olony’s appointment to Monday after electric fault shutdown SSBC

JUBA – South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit has pushed the appointment of General Johnson Olony Thabo, the SPLM-IO gubernatorial nominee for Upper Nile state, to Monday after state-ran SSBC went off line.

A senior government official at the ministry of information told Sudans Post this afternoon that Olony’s appointment was before the table at the SSBC, but could not be announced Friday as the television station was offline for electricity purposes.

“Yes, the appointment of Governor Olony was before the SSBC staff. We presented it on Thursday and we expected it to be announced on Friday, but given a situation imposed by electricity fault, his appointment has been pushed to Monday,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Yesterday, South Sudan’s defense minister Angelina Teny who was in Khartoum since October 27, told Olony that he would be appointed on Friday, a week after deputy finance minister Agok Makur, who is also in Sudan, told Sudans Post that President Salva Kiir had agreed to appoint Olony as governor of the oil-rich Upper Nile state.

Separately, the acting SSBC director, Suzan Alphonse confirmed to the Juba-based independent Eye Radio that the TV station went off line because of electric fault that has also affected its radio broadcast.

“You know -with electricity when it happens like that…the engineers decided to put it off…that is why we are not on-air, but you can access to it fully through satellite,” Alphonse said..

She further said the management were still working to restore normal transmissions on both television and radio.