Manyo County Commissioner|Photo|Courtesy

Upper Nile State Legislative Assembly has impeached the Commissioner of Manyo County Peter Awon Adong over his alleged mismanagement of fund for oilfield communities and abuse of power.

This is according to Jacob Dollar, Speaker of the state parliament, who said the decision was taken after an MP representing Manyo petitioned the House in June.

He said the impeachment of Commissioner Adong, was due to significant concerns regarding the mismanagement of the 3 percent allocated to oilfield communities and potential abuse of power.

“The commissioner appeared before the August House yesterday. He tried to answer some questions, but there were no official documents that he came with, only empty hands,” he said.

According to him, a vote of no confidence was undertaken this afternoon in which 38 lawmakers voted for his impeachment and 17 others against it.

Mr. Dollar said the alleged misuse of fund was the central point of the commissioner’s impeachment as it is a crucial resource for local development and governance.

The parliament speaker said the commissioner could now be sacked after a comprehensive report is submitted to the office of the state governor.

“So it was a very serious issue and then the honorable members decided to impeach him they voted on no confidence against the commissioner and it was 38 vs 17.”

“Now according to the rules and regulations of the assembly and according to the conduct of business, if the commissioner lost the trust of the assembly, the assembly will write recommendations to the governor for the removable of this commissioner.”

“We are now putting all these reports and details to the governor and he has a choice to resign.”

Eye Radio’s efforts to contact the commissioner for comment were not successful as his phone contacts failed to go through.

Meanwhile, Philip Akol, the Deputy Chairperson of Cooperative and Rural Development Committee, who raised the motion at the state assembly says the commissioner was misusing his power against the community in the area.

Akol said the impeachment is a step toward accountability in his constituency and the state.

“The first issue concerns the differences between the commissioner and the community; the commissioner stopped the community not to doing anything in the area.”

“The second issue is the sacking of the officials of the civil servants, in the past time he was only sacking the civil servants’ officials who were well experienced.”

“The third issue is that this commissioner detains the chairperson of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Manyo County. The fourth issue is the misuse of the money of the 3% of the oil in the area, the commissioner is using this money for their purpose.”