South Sudan's president dissolves government ahead of country's first elections

A senior government official told the BBC that staff arriving for work were turned away and told to return the following Monday. UN agencies in Juba also asked staff to work remotely while the situation was monitored.Kiir last week dismissed the chairman of the national elections commission, Abednego Akok Kacuol, without giving a reason. He was replaced by the commission's secretary-general, Gabriel Bol Deng. Akok had said in August that the commission needed $250m (£190m) to conduct the election but had received only $21m.In June, the main opposition group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), the party of Machar, warned people not to take part in poll preparations."Anyone coming to register voters and campaign in territories controlled by the mighty SPLM-IO, you will be a prisoner of war," Nathaniel Pierino, acting chairperson of the group, said in a post on Facebook.The body which oversees implementation of the 2018 peace agreement, the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC), said South Sudan had entered a "critical phase".