South Sudan State mum on RTGoNU anniversary as group decries ‘wasted months’

South Sudan marked the first anniversary of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) on February 22 amidst hanging questions on the fate of peace deal implementation.

Though well-known in the public domain, the day attracted no fete and speech as government remained tight-lipped over the matter. The State House never communicated over the commemoration and neither did a statement come from the office of the government spokesperson.

Pressure has mounted on the National Transitional Committee (NTC) to speed up the implementation of the peace accord.

Since the signing of the peace agreement on April 12, 2018, the commitment of the transition committee has been questioned by the civil society groups, the church and the diplomatic community.

 The Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) drew a picture of an implementation schedule that has translated into wastage of time as the country risks entering 2022 with no plans to hold an election.

According to CEPO’s Executive Director Edmund Yakani, the parties that signed the RTGoNU pact and were entrusted with its implementation have wasted 17 months.

Timelines

In a brief breakdown, Yakani said the parties actualised the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) on September 2, 2018, but wasted the subsequent months of October, November and December.

The same trend spilt over to 2019 where from January to May, the government set up Security Transitional Cantonment barrack and training centres for the unified forces but wasted June up to January 2020. These were seven months that went into the drain.

From February to March of 2020, the presidency of RTGoNU established and the Cabinet. But that

was before COVID-19 struck in April 2020 scattering all the plans that had been lined up by the government.

The COVID-19 implications delayed the meetings of the presidency under the R-ARCSS in the country for over eight months from the period of February to October. Only state deputy governors were appointed.

According to Yakani, the lull by the COVID-19 caused massive blip in the momentum that is necessary to form the government.

“Parties took advantage of the COVID-19 for the partial formation of RTGoNU and also they dropped the dissemination of the R-ARCSS in the country,” he explained in the report.

He said the set of legislative structures and Council of State, and appointment of ministers, advisors, county commissioners and commissioners for independent commissions delayed.

He lamented the virus outbreak also interfered with the Transitional Security Tasks mostly during the process of delivering the Transitional Security Arrangements.

He stated: “The key tasks are the training; graduation and redeployment of unified forces and also training, graduation and redeployment of the VIP protection.”   

“The country till today lacks central security and defence command. This means still the parties [are] holding their separate army command system,”