IGAD countries told to pay their members of South Sudan peace monitoring body   

JUBA – A senior member of South Sudan’s SPLM-FDs has urged the IGAD countries to take over the responsibility of paying their national monitors serving in monitoring mechanism.

Recently, South Sudan’s government disbursed $295,200 to CTSAMVM to clear arrears of its national monitors after the IGAD, a regional block that mediated 2018 revitalized peace agreement, declined to fund the body responsible for monitoring and verifying the implementation of a permanent ceasefire.

Speaking during the CTSAMVM security meeting in Juba on Friday, Bior Leek, a senior member of the Former Detainees urged the IGAD countries to equally, take care of their national monitors.

“I would urge IGAD countries to pay their national monitors in CTSAMM because if South Sudan can take care of its national monitors, I would like to ask IGAD countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Sudan to pay their national monitors in CTSAM so it would like fair,” Leek said at Friday’s CTSAMM meeting in Juba.

Leek appreciated South Sudan’s unity government “for the collective compromises and progress made in paying their national monitors.

“We want to thank our government for paying our national monitors on the ground to do their job, so it is privileged for us,” he said.

“If they didn’t intervene to pay national monitors, we wouldn’t have had this CTSAMVM Technical Committee meeting today,” he added.

He claimed that the IGAD failure to secure the budget for the national monitors was an attempt to betray the government internationally.

“There is no article in the agreement that compelled the government of South Sudan to pay national monitors but it was done in a way to frustrate the government to look in the eyes of the international committee as a government that can’t take care of its national monitors,” he said.