South Sudan’s Machar to name replacement for minister of mining – spokesman

JUBA – First Vice President and leader of the main armed opposition group, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), Dr. Riek Machar Teny is in consultations to name a replacement for the minister of mining who resigned in August following split among its rank and file, according to an opposition spokesman.

The minister of mining was until August 12, 2021, the deputy SPLM-IO Chairman Henry Odwar.

The senior opposition official resigned as minister to protest the delays in the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement and then, a day later, joined the SPLM-IO faction led by former SPLA-IO chief of staff General Simon Gatwech Dual accusing Machar of surrendering to the regime in Juba.

Speaking to Sudans Post this morning, Puok Both Baluang, the Acting Press Secretary in the Office of the First Vice President and Director of Information of the SPLM-IO National Committee for Information and Public Relations, said the main armed opposition group is in consultation to name a replacement for Odwar as minister of mining.

“Currently, there is an ongoing consultation process regarding the position of the national minister of mining,” Baluang who is in Juba told Sudans Post on phone on Monday evening.

President Salva Kiir Mayardit in June, on the recommendation of First Vice President Machar, appointed then SPLA-IO chief of staff Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual as presidential advisor on peace, but the later refused and instead attempted to remove Machar as SPLM-IO leader sparking opposition infighting in Northern Upper Nile state.

Asked about the fate of the position, Baluang said the SPLM-IO leadership hasn’t yet decided what happens to the position next saying: “Nothing has been decided by the leadership on the position of Presidential Advisory for Peace.”