Africa-Press – South-Sudan. South Sudan cabinet on Wednesday in an extraordinary meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir Mayardit introduced a bill that will see changes in the names of South Sudan National Police Service, South Sudan Prison Service, and South Sudan Fire Brigades, Minister of Cabinet Affairs Martin Elia Lomuro told reporters in Juba this evening.
Lomuro said the meeting which was also attended by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny, Vice President Hussein Abdelbaggi, Vice President Taban Deng Gai, and Vice President James Wani Igga reviewed the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011 to bring it in line with the revitalized peace agreement signed in 2018.
“The Council of Ministers today in a meeting shared by President Salva Kiir Mayardit decided to review the Transitional Constriction of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011, as amended, to bring it in line with the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan,” Lomuro said following the meeting.
“As we all know, the constitution is the basic law from which all other laws will emanate from and so we discussed amendment number eight the transitional constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011, amendment number eight 2020. All these laws of course were reviewed the by the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCAC) which is an organ created by the agreement,” he added.
He said: “We have adopted in fact that amendment number eight to bring it inline now with the agreement. We also introduced another amendment as a government, amendment number nine, a very important amendment which was to do with changing the names of the organized forces, some of the sections of the organized forces.”
The amendment was made to article 155 of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011, as amended, that deals with the naming of the police service, article 156, which talks of the prison services and finally article 158 which deals with the fire brigade. The minister said the amendments were made to differentiate the national organs of the organized forces to those in the states.
“The first one was amending the name of South Sudan National Police Service (SSNPS) this under article 155 [of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011, as amended) and we have now called it National Police Service (NPS) because ‘South Sudan’ is the country, but then that particular organization belongs to the country and because we have two levels of police, the national and the state, we referred to it as National Police Service to mean the National Police Service of the Republic of South Sudan,” he said.
“We also amended article 156 of the constitution to change the name of South Sudan Prison Service (SSPS), from prison service to Correctional Service. This is really bringing it to modern way of referring to these institutions because it is about correcting behaviors of those committing crimes. And then amendment 158 of the constitution as amended, to change the name of Fire Brigade Service to just Civil Defense,” he said.
