MPs mount pressure to end cattle influx in Equatoria
A team from the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA), and the Council of States has urged the governor of Central Equatoria State, Emmanuel Adil Anthony, to solve the conflict between herders and host communities.
The team, which was led by the chairperson of the Security and Defence Committee, Daniel Deng Lual, discussed the influx of cattle keepers into the Equatoria region and the impact of cattle keepers on the host communities.
“Deng also reiterated the Council’s commitment to working collaboratively with the State leadership on addressing some of the persistent issues facing their respective constituents, especially the cattle herders,” a statement from the governor’s office partly noted.
Governor Adil vowed to join hands with the council in finding a lasting solution to the conflict instigated by cattle keeping in the Equatoria region.
Evacuate cattle
There have been increased efforts to solve the Equatoria conflict. On Sunday, the national minister for information, communication, Michael Makuei Lueth, urged the Bor community rearing cattle in the Equatoria region to leave before the army slaughters their cattle.
He dismissed the allegations that he was one of the cattle keepers conflicting with farmers in the Equatoria region.
Makuei added that those who claimed he owned cattle should give them to him so that he would allow the army to slaughter them.
He called on the herders to move the cattle to their places of origin, arguing that ‘‘waiting for the rainy season’’ should not be an excuse because there is plenty of water along the Nile.
“The pastoralists are here claiming that there is no way they can evacuate cattle now. We have sent the army, so [any] person who is refusing to leave will bear the consequences, “Makuei stressed.
“The army has no problem with the person who has left early, but if you are the last person [then] you will feed the army. We have sent the army, and they do not have food with them.”
Taxing herders
Last month, the Central Equatoria State Minister for Local Government and Law Enforcement Agency, Moro Isaac Jenesio, said they were planning to tax herders to generate income for the state as well as address the deadlock.
He reiterated that the state would set grazing lands that would be paid for by the willing pastoralists, to graze their cattle.
“The governor asked some of the ministers to come up with a plan to draft some state policies on how we can be able to minimise the rampant movement of cattle. In the plan that we intend to come out with, it will involve taxing these herds of cattle,” said Jenesio.
“If you are capable of doing it then we will say okay, welcome to Central Equatoria because we are also benefiting from you, but that will not be at the expense of the agrarian community.”
He claimed that the plans for the graduation of forces to maintain law and order were instead fuelling the conflict related to cattle.
“You even read from the media that the governor led delegations to the cattle camps to move these cattle that is based on the order issued by the President, and of course, as we move them, we, first of all, try to talk to them to move alone and if they fail to do so, we will be forced to use the apparatus that we have to move them,” the minister stated.
