By Bida Elly David
SPLM-IG and their rival SPLM-IO as well as other parties’ signatories to the peace agreement yesterday agreed to jointly work towards implementing the peace roadmap that was earlier presented on the pending provisions and deliberated on how the country would move forward towards elections after the end of the interim period for the transitional government.
Last week, a team formerly tasked by the government to work on the roadmap for the implementation of the agreement presented a document before President Salva Kiir Mayardit who later approved it and gave a way forward for the remaining variables to be worked on but the SPLM-IO was discontented with the document terming it to have been done out of their knowledge.
SPLM-IO earlier defined the document as an SPLM-IG roadmap that excluded most of parties to the agreement.
Speaking to reporters after the Presidency meeting at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs yesterday, Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro the Minister of Cabinet Affairs reiterated that the meeting deliberated on the roadmap that focused on how the country should move forward after the end of the transitional period.
He said the meeting briefed the parities on the chapters 1, 2, 5 and 6 as well as the time frame and the start date of the road map and made them convinced showing readiness to the strategy.
“This afternoon (Thursday) we had an extended meeting of the Presidency which included the parties to the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflicts in South Sudan (R-ARCSS). The meeting had the roadmap and the proposal on how the country should move forward after the end of the thirty six (36) months of the transitional period” Dr. Lomuro said.
“The parties were taken into the details of the implementation of chapter one, chapter two, chapter five, chapter six tabulated with the time frame, start date and finished date to give us a broad outlook as to how many time we have to finish some of the key positions that are necessary” he lamented
Dr. Lomuro noted that the parties that attended the meeting showed their commitment and contributions towards completion of the remaining provisions to the agreement especially the SPLM-IO that was earlier skeptical about the document.
“After the presentation, the leadership of the parties to the agreement including the leader of the SPLM-IO being the major partner to the agreement had made their contributions and we have agreed that the road map has provided the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU) with a very good way forward and that the high level committee comprising of the representatives from the parties to the agreement would now bring in the contributions of the other partners who did not participate in the development of the roadmap’’ Dr. Lomuro said.
He however underlined that the other parties that did not attend the meeting will be meeting starting from today (Friday) and briefed on the minutes from the previous meeting.
“We are happy that the parties to the agreement are in the process of invoking the provision of article 8.4 of the agreement on the basis of which a document that would be owned by all of us would be produced to ensure that the country continues to maintain the peace resulting from the permanent ceasefire and that the country leads in a peaceful manner to a democratic process that will end in the elections of the government by the people” assured the Cabinet Affairs minister.
“Tomorrow (Friday) we will be in business to receive the contributions from other parties of the agreement who did not participate in the development of the roadmap and their representative promise to attend at ten(10) O’clock to ensure that they bring all their contributions’’ he added.
At the same note, Dr. Lomuro emphasized that they are going to sit as a team to ensure that they finish deliberating on the document, saying a process was also discussed on how to rectify the document.
He hinted that after all the necessary completion, the public shall be informed about the outcome of the meeting driven from the agreement.
“We are going to tell the public on what is next, to be done. The President is very happy with the cooperation of the parties to the agreement towards contributing to the roadmap. When some of the representatives come, they contribute and we tell the public’’ affirmed.