![John Agany Deng, Chairperson of Information Committee in the transitional parliament, speaks to reporters after passage of the bill on Wednesday, 4 October 2023. [Photo by Sudans Post]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sudanspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_5048-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1366&quality=89&ssl=1)
JUBA, OCTOBER 4, 2023 (SUDANS POST) — South Sudan’s Transitional National Legislative Assembly on Wednesday passed the long-awaited anti-corruption bill 2023 to combat corruption in the public sector.
Speaking following the passage of the bill, head of information committee in parliament John Agany Deng, said the bill will empower officials at the anti-graft institution to enter any government institution to conduct investigations on government officials suspected of looting public properties and funds
“The anti-corruption bill has been tabled in the third reading stage, it has been deliberated and now it has passed to the final stage and it has become now a law,” Agany said.
Agany who is also the assembly’s spokesman said the bill will strengthen the Anti-corruption Commission to combat corruption and hold those who engage in fraud to account.
“You know that in South Sudan like elsewhere in the world, there are cases of corruption which in fact the government needs to contain and you can’t contain them without having a working paper that helps you to execute,” he said.
“This will strengthen the speech of the president in which he is hoping to have a government with zero corruption and this zero corruption in the government can’t be realized without this bill,” he added.
He said it would strengthen the policy of zero-tolerance for corruption declared by President Salva Kiir Mayardit.
“We are now having this law and the law will be handling the cases and it will also organize the people that each and everything that we do, we are accounted for,” he said.
He said the bill demands constitutional post-holders to declare their assets before assuming office.
“One of the recommendations is the anti-corruption commission must list out the liability of assets, each and every constitutional post-holder must declare his or her own assets before assuming the office,” he said.
“Another one is that he (the chairperson of the anti-corruption commission) must follow up with each institution of the government to see how all these institutions are run,” he added.
