By Yang Ater Yang
The Rumbek Youth Peace Committee has been given 20 motorbikes to boost coordination, sustainability of peace and community violence reduction among the communities.
Speaking during the handover of motorbikes, the caretaker minister of peace building who is also the minister of local government and law enforcement agency, Chol Kuotwel Manhom said “I am standing here on behalf of the governor of Lakes state and my own behalf to handover these assets to peace committee, so we give you our appreciation”. “We have been working together to bring peace in Lakes state and because there is peace, we are able to move and we are able to do many things, so, we hope to work together”.
The representative from UNMISS Civil Affair Division, Mr. Khalif Kharah said that Oxfam is one of the leading non-governmental organizations and it is a global movement of people working together to end injustice of poverty and violence reduction among the community. “Oxfam through funding from UNMISS is implementing communities’ violence reduction that aims to empower peace committee to address conflict at latent stages through early warning and early response system,” Khalif said. This project is being implemented in collaboration with the ministry of peace building to provide oversight function to the committees.
Oxfam in its interventions ensures accountability and transparency in all it works including resources management of every penny and so it is a requirement to track outbound donation to people we work with and income donation from different donation sources.
Meanwhile, the Oxfam representative, Majier Majak said the Oxfam require that donation to entities, individual groups, institutions, government, among others should be solely used for the purpose it is intended for and in any reasonable opinion of the user to ensure that all donations are used properly for the common good while taking consideration of the environment and health of human beings and all its use which brings negative impact to people’s environment and other disrepute issues should be avoided at all cost.
Majier told the groups that being the user’s responsibility for the maintenance and replacement of same goods items, equipment, spare parts materials in line with group regulations and bylaws, they should contribute to the group for the use of the goods to conserve and expand the group capacity in their activity.
“This is a continuation of youth peace committee empowerment package where the first receive 5 ox ploughs per a committee totaling to 100 ox ploughs, given 40 solar panels and today finalized with 20 motorcycles for 20 committees each received one motor-bike,” he said.
Director general ministry of peace building, Zecharia Kuoi Majak said that UNMISS and implementing partner Oxfam set the rules and regulations for the use of the motorbikes that were given to the peace committees, stressing that no one should take it as private asset, not to be grabbed by any authority. He said maintenance of the motorbike is a prior responsibility of peace youth committee and many others.
Kuoi said the rules and regulations will be implemented by peace youth committee and monitored and evaluated by the state ministry of peace building in partnership with UNMISS civil Affairs Division and Oxfam for those who fail to use perfectly, the ministry will recommend to give them to other groups for use.
