JUBA – South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, SPLM-IO, led by the country’s First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny, is yet again calling on President Salva Kiir Mayardit to speed up the long-awaited formation of state governments and national and state legislatures which it says would boost efforts to maintain security across the country.
The Reconstituted Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU) formed in February last year, is yet to establish national legislature, state, and local governments as well as the Hybrid Court and other transitional justice institutions to try war crimes committed during more than six years of conflict in the world’s youngest nation.
The parties in the coalition government are also yet to complete training and graduation of the unified forces to take charge of security during the three-year transitional period.
“We urge President Salva Kiir to form a state government and constitute the transitional parliament so that we can fulfill important provisions in the agreement so that we as the government of national unity can deliver services to our citizens,” Puok Both Baluang, SPLM-IO Director of Information and Public Relations told Sudans Post in an interview this morning.
Both blamed the SPLM under President Kiir for delaying the process given the fact that the SPLM-IO has submitted the list of their nominees for state and national parliaments.
“We have submitted the list for our nominees in different levels of the government mainly for the reconstitution of the parliament, state, and local governments. So the delay is from the SPLM-IG,” Baluang said.
Last week, the presidency said it had agreed to finalized the reconstitution of the transitional national legislative assembly and the council of state before February 15, 2021, something that’s has not however been fulfilled.
“We were surprised to have missed the February 15 deadline agreed upon during Presidency earlier this months,” Baluang said.