By Taban Henry
A political analyst has on Thursday said the ruling SPLM party is spending a lot of money in mobilizing its party members instead of mobilizing priorities behind the implementation of the peace agreement.
Speaking in an inclusive interview with No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper, Mr. Boboya James, a political analyst from the University of Juba said the Ruling SPLM is spending a lot of money in mobilizing its party members as if the election is going to happen tomorrow while forgetting the implementation of the peace agreement.
“Today we have seen how the SPLM under Salva Kiir is establishing the SPLM offices in the counties, putting interim chairpersons in all the counties and has resources to mobilize but no resources to pay teachers, nurses, agricultural extension workers who are supposed to advise people on how to produce food in those areas,” James said.
He commended the political parties who are part of the peace agreement to begin recommitting to the full and unconditional implementation of the peace agreement so that total peace comes to South Sudan for the peace to be translated to significant and effective service delivery.
“The people in South Sudan are suffering, they don’t get access to health services, children are suffering to get access to education, civil servants salaries are not being paid if they are paid not well paid, and as you see the oil money nobody knows how much money is coming from the oil and how much is coming from the none oil revenue and how this money can be put into one account to be transferred to the; States, Counties, Payams and the Bomas so that the people of South Sudan can start benefiting from their own resources.
These are the priorities for someone who wants to work with the government right now,” he explained.
James revealed that people in South Sudan are worried adding that there are a lot of conflicts going on all over the country such as inter-communal conflict, subnational conflict, land conflict, cattle raiding and conflicts politically motivated and the only way these conflicts are dealt with is by unification of the forces that are there to protect the constitution of South Sudan.
“We have community armies, armies loyal to the political parties which is very problematic, you cannot run a country with a lot of war lords citing if Ukraine was to have the kind of the army we are having they would have been defeated on day one of the Russian invasion but because of having unified army they are able to withstand the number two army in the world” he said.
James mentioned that there is need to begin building the army, the security and the police, the prison services and the military intelligent to respect the constitution. South Sudanese want something that comes now and contributes positively to their lives while adding that South Sudan is experiencing misery, economic hardship, poverty, ignorance and diseases hitting us as well as hunger devastating our interest from this country. These are the issues the political parties should start addressing more importantly than the logo and the structures of the political parties.