By Philip Buda Ladu
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is in Juba for a 3-day working visit to check on the progress of the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement (R-ARCSS) ahead of the December 2024 polls.
He landed at Juba International Airport (JIA) on Tuesday evening to a warm red-carpet reception by President Salva Kiir Mayardit in the presence of other top government officials.
The South African president, who is one of the guarantors of the revitalized peace agreement, was accompanied to Juba by his minister of foreign affairs and other dignitaries.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ramadan Mohammed Abdallah Goc told the media at JIA that they were thrilled to welcome President Ramaphosa to South Sudan in his capacity as guarantors to the R-ARCSS.
“So the president of South Africa will be here, and he will meet with our President, and he will also meet the First Vice President,” Goc stated. “And he would also meet with other signatories to the revitalized peace agreement.”
Goc further added that the R-ARCSS guarantor would be meeting with the election-related institutions.
“Ramaphosa is also going to meet with the National Election Commission (NEC), the Political Parties Council (PPC), and the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC),” he noted.
The deputy foreign affairs minister describes President Ramaphosa’s working visit as very significant, especially for the implementation of the agreement and the December elections.
“The meeting and the visit for us are very important because we do believe that the president of South Africa, as a guarantor, will come and sit with the leaders of South Sudan to hear how the country is prepared for the elections,” said Goc.
He assured that, as far as the transitional government of national unity is concerned, all institutions are ready for the elections to be conducted in the Republic of South Sudan.
Goc noted that they will brief President Ramaphosa and his delegation on the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement and the progress made.
He highlighted some of the accomplishments of the implementation of the agreement.
“We have all the institutions of the government from the national level up to the local level; they were reconstituted, and everyone is participating in regard to the security arrangements,” he continued. “In regards also to the implementation of the security arrangement, everyone in the country knows that phase one of the security arrangement was done very well.”
He further cited that over 56,000 members of the necessary unified forces were trained together, and now they are working together, as a good number of them were deployed after graduation.
“We are very happy that President Ramaphosa is here and that he will meet with our leaders. We have good reports that we will present to him, and we hope that after the visit he will go out of this country with a good impression,” Mr. Goc concluded.