Gov’t claims that there is no money for peace implementation is a lie – activist

JUBA – A South Sudan Juba-based activist is accusing the government of deliberately delaying the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement and lying to the people of South Sudan and the international community that it has no money.

The government signed a revitalized version of a 2015 peace agreement supposedly to end the ongoing conflict in the country in September 2018 after an international pressure on President Salva Kiir and the main armed opposition group SPLM-IO led by Dr. Riek Machar.

The peace agreement initially set the formation of the transitional government eight months from the signing of the agreement.

That timeline was not respected and the parties expanded the pre-transitional period twice owing to some disagreements and government assertion that there was no money for the agreement’s implementation.

Despite failure to implement all the pre-transitional activities, the parties formed the unity government provided for in the agreement after Kiir offered a landmark compromise to return the country to 10 states and Machar accepting to return to Juba without the forces allowed with him in the agreement.

The parties are now stuck mainly on the most important part of the agreement; the security arrangements which provides for reunification of the rival forces to establish the country’s first professional national army.

Some forces mainly belonging to the opposition have stuck in the training centres with Kiir’s government claiming that there are no guns for the soldiers to be graduated. In most parts of the assembly areas, government forces have not reported to the centres.

Last month, the defense minister Angelina Teny who is also a senior member of the Sudan People Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) led by Dr. Riek Machar and who also represents the group in the Joint Defense Board (JDB) said there are no forces to graduate because most of the forces have fled cantonment sites.

Speaking in an interview with the Juba-based Eye Radio activist Edmund Yakani who is the Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) said the government is not truthful in its narrative that there is no money for the implementation of the agreement.

“What political logic do we have in mind by telling the international community we don’t have money to graduate the forces if we are able to consume more than one million dollars illegally?” Yakani asked during the interview on Monday.

This comes after the South Sudan National Audit Chamber released a damning report suggesting corruption in the ministry of finance in which it said several government senior officials received millions of dollars for unknown reasons including the office of the president.

It said the money being stolen belongs to the 2% and 3% meant for oil-producing countries. The auditor further said government institutions are refusing to provide financial documents for audit making it difficult for his institution to do its work.