Dear President Kiir: Women Should Be Offered Opportunity to Lead the Finance Portfolio in South Sudan

Date: 17th July, 2024

H.E. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit

President of the Republic of South Sudan

Chairman of SPLM and Commander-in-Chief of SSPDF and Supreme Commander of all Regular Armed Forces

Subject: Women Should Be Offered Opportunity to Lead the Finance Portfolio

Thursday, 18 July 2024 (PW) — Your Excellency, it takes a great leader to guide a great nation, and we must have a leader that we all jointly recognize. Such a leader can advance the SPLM vision and mission, and that leader is none other than you, President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

To unite ourselves as SPLM leadership under your charismatic and guiding banner, the happiness of our people should be the fundamental mantra of the SPLM party. Senior party leaders, in particular, should set role models in guiding us toward a promised paradise.

Putting people and their interests first should be the primary requirement for the party to lead effectively and ensure their overarching demands and expectations are addressed through people-centered policymaking processes.

Moving forward, I would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm my comradeship request to allow women to lead the Ministry of Finance and Planning. Since 2005, sixteen men have held this vital ministry, yet no women have been given the chance. As a South Sudanese, I am obliged to appeal to your highest office to consider representation of women in that ministry if the current Minister, Mr. Marial Dongrin Ater, falters like his predecessors.

To echo your own words, “I’m looking for solutions, this is why I bring somebody today, tomorrow kick him out and bring another person. It is everything that I have tried. When I will succeed to get the right person, that’s the person I will maintain.” I believe it is imperative for your esteemed leadership to try “her” instead of always “him” in that ministry.

South Sudan, and the SPLM party in particular, is blessed with highly qualified women. Some women in your current cabinet hold various political portfolios, demonstrating incontrovertible discipline and unwavering loyalty to all SPLM structures and indeed your steadfast leadership.

As I dare to take responsibility at this juncture, it is my time to present to you my forward-thinking responsibility as a tested and committed SPLM cadre. I call for the party and your leadership to bring women’s leadership into that ministry. Perhaps miracles will happen overnight under women’s leadership to unlock all the financial doors that seemed to be closed.

I urge SPLM leadership to forge ahead with tenacity and resolve to allow our mothers, daughters, and sisters to try their hand in this challenging ministry.

It is incumbent upon all of us to remain modest, prudent, and uphold the image of the party in adherence to a strict line both ideologically and institutionally. At this point, our women are an integral part of our journey as a founding party, and they should also be empowered by allowing them to run ministries like Finance.

To reiterate my argument, I look forward to our women leaders starting to lobby immediately when public opinion turns against the current Minister in the coming days and months.

Mr. Chairman, the ball is in your court. You should listen to your people’s voices, respond to their opinions, and meet their needs in a timely manner in an effort to realize the goal of staying true to the SPLM’s original aspiration and founding mission.

I have never been afraid of taking decisive steps in protecting and promoting the SPLM guiding principles across the board and boosting its morale beyond our borders. This has inspired me to lobby for women to hold that national cake and see how women will divide it among South Sudanese.

We always arm ourselves with basic documents and set firm values to discern between right and wrong and resist any attempt that will damage the character of the SPLM as the party we all cherish.

I hope women leaders have already selected a competent and experienced SPLM woman cadre to fill the vacancy if the current Minister underperforms within a three to four-month period.

We, as SPLM leaders, should consciously talk about integrity, understand the rules, adhere to disciplines, be honest, and be consistent in our speeches and actions, which is contrary to what male cadres have been doing all this time.

Women cherish harmony and peace in different spheres of society, as well as demonstrate unquestionable loyalty to the leadership of SPLM, yet they are being overlooked.

Against this background and with unquestionable loyalty to your Excellency’s leadership, I hereby pen this personal request to appoint a woman in the next reshuffle if Comrade Marial Dongrin Ater is relieved of his duties.

I wish to bring this matter to your leadership’s attention for a quick response.

We should always adore the overarching goal of promoting social equity and justice that can improve public wellbeing. This should be a mirror through which we can reflect on our institutions, mechanisms, policies, and regulations in various areas as the ruling party.

We should promote the SPLM mass line of “doing everything for the people,” since SPLM’s power belongs to the people.

Lastly, I call upon SPLM leadership to intervene in this case; otherwise, women will remain marginalized among the marginalized.

Yours in comradeship,

Cde. Ater Garang Ariath

Former Secretary of Defunct Aweil East State Government

Journalist and Human Rights Activist, living in Juba

SPLM United! Never be defeated

SPLM Organized! Never be defeated

SPLM Moved! For unity, equality and progress

SPLM Oyee!

Cc: SPLM SG

Cc: South Sudanese women leaders

Cc: File

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