We have destroyed the government ourselves – Former Defence Minister Kuol Manyang

Former Defense Minister and senior Presidential Advisor, Kuol Manyang Juuk has confessed that the SPLM-led South Sudanese government of which he is a part, has “failed to deliver services to the people”.

Speaking during the swearing-in ceremony of the newly appointed State government-officials on Friday in Bor, Manyang said the government has done nothing among the things that made them take up arms against Khartoum regimes.

“When we fought the Sudan government for 22 years, it was for us to become independent so that we do what the government of Sudan was not doing for us”, he said.

The people of Southern Sudan took up arms against the Khartoum regime under Jaafar Nimeiri in1983 in the second Sudanese Civil war to fight what the rebel group – SudanPeoples’ Liberation Movement/Army called ‘marginalisation of the people of Southern Sudan’.

The war ended in 2005 when a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between theSudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The agreement gave the SPLM the power to lead a semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) until 2011 when the region broke away in a referendum to become the present Republic of South Sudan.

“Since July2005, the government of South Sudan was formed, but what did we do from 2005 until 2011. What did we do? We didn’t build schools, we didn’t build roads, widded not build houses for our people, we didn’t make hospitals, we are not feeding ourselves and depending on the relief food”, he added in a very frustrated tone.

Manyang has held several government offices since the start of the Sudan’s Transitional Government of National Unity that was formed after the signing of the Comprehensive PeaceAgreement (CPA in 2005.

He was first appointed Sudan’s Minister for Roads and Transport before he was reappointed as Jonglei State governor