Thiik Thiik Mayardit, the Deputy Mayor of Juba City for Service - Courtesy

The Deputy Mayor of Juba City for Service has criticized the Islamic Council for what he called ‘operating as a parallel government in Juba’, and warned them against illegal taxation, an accusation described by the council as baseless.

Thiik Thiik Mayardit made the remarks during the welcoming ceremony of the new leadership of the Juba City Council at Kator Quarter Council on Tuesday, October 24.

The Deputy Mayor of Juba City for Service said the council claims that the Konyo-Konyo market belongs to the institution, which he refutes.

He said the market is under Juba City Council and the Islamic Council has no right to claim it.

Thiik argues that the Islamic Council are collecting taxes from traders at the Konyo-konyo market.

This, he said, is against the law.

“The problem of Kator, in Konyokonyo, is a problem and one day it will cause fighting in Juba City Council,” said Thiik.

“The Islamic Council are operating as if they are another government in Juba and but they are not the government,” he said.

“The Muslims [Islamic Council] only have the right to own the places which are donated by the people to them but not the market,” he added.

“They [Islamic Council] have their own national security, national police, the army as if this country is divided into a tribal line of religion,” he added.

“If you go and ask the person who is coming from national security, you will find he is a Muslim, and all those Muslims are not from here in Juba, they came from other states, why do they want to cause a problem here, why, and we are supposed to stay in harmony as citizens of South Sudan.”?

In response, the Secretary of the Islamic Council dismissed the accusations as baseless.

According to Abdallah Baraj, the security forces deployed at the premises are implementing an order in the 2018 presidential order that all land belonging to the council must be returned.

“The Deputy Mayor of Juba City for Service Thik Thik Mayerdit who has just accused us of having our own force that parallels to the national force this is baseless,” said Baraj.

“We just followed the order of the president, and this land is our land is registered in our name since 1971 before the establishment of the Konyo-konyo market itself,” he said.

“We complained to the president in 2018 the president issued an order and assigned national security to make sure all our places are returned back to us.”