Activist urges government to swear in new lawmakers 

JUBA – A South Sudanese Juba-based activist is urging the government of national unity to speed the process for swearing-in of the newly appointed parliamentarians to pave ways for the passing of the national budget.

It has been nearly a month since South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit reconstituted the national parliament on May 10, in accordance with the 2018 peace deal after several months of delay.

“It is a high time for the Presidency to really speed up the swearing-in of the parliamentarians to pave the ways for the passing of the national budget and other bills,” said Edmund Yakani, Executive Director for Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) on Thursday via phone interview in Juba.

“Our financial year is approaching which is July next month and we have seen the government running for the last two years without a national approved budget by the national parliament. Until when should executive run the country without a national budget approved by the parliament?”  Yakani asked.

The outspoken activist said swearing-in of the lawmakers will help to speed up the passing of the national budget for the fiscal year 2021/2022.

“Parliamentarians could have taken the oath last week and by this time, they could have been operating and they could have started the work on the development of the national budget for the coming July,” he said.

The CEPO executive director believed the swearing-in of lawmakers will give them the power to question security organs on the increased level of communal violence in some parts of the country.

“We believe why there is a sharp increase of violence across the country is simply because chapter two of the Revitalized Peace Agreement has not been implemented, so many soldiers deserted the training sites and they have joined this business of armed inter-communal violence so that they can access another livelihood,” he said.

“If we have a functioning parliament, they could have questioned some of our national security institutions why they are allowing this violence to continue,” he added.

“All these delays, we see them as tactics to expand the life span of the agreement. The implication of the delay is that we are going to have another extension of the agreement because you can’t have elections taking place since the timeline is going to expire,” an activist said.