National, News

Constitution-making process stalls over funding

By Kidega Livingstone

 

Lack of funding impedes the Notational Constitution Review Commission (NCRC) from starting drafting the Permanent Constitutional Making Process.

Chairperson of the institution, Riang Yer Zuor said fifteen committees are supposed to be instituted with 12 South Sudanese members and three others from outside.

The committee is to draft the permanent constitutional-making process before seeking the views of citizens at the grassroots level.

However, the bodies are not yet in place due to a lack of funding.

According to Zuor, the commission has no funding for the constitutional making process activities.

He said that the institution is waiting for the new budget from the government, as its primary funding comes from the Ministry of Finance and Planning.

“As we speak to you, the commission has not yet gone out to do its normal activities for the constitutional-making process because of the financial constraints,” Yier said yesterday during a training workshop on the constitutional-making process organized by the Support Peace Initiative Development Organization in Juba.

“Our activities are limited because the source of funding comes from the government. The commission is still waiting for a new budget from the government so that we can be able to start recruiting the committee for the activities,” he added.

He revealed that the commission has submitted the new budget and they are still waiting: “Without that being, we cannot say we do much.”

In his part, the Executive Director of Support Peace Initiative Development Organization, Woncan Saviour Lazarus, said that the organization is committed to raising awareness on the conditional-making process.

He said the recommendations they are collecting during the public discussion will be handed to the National Constitution Review Commission for implantation.

“We are looking for a public-driven constitution that is going to be permanent for generation after generation, so this process is very important, and it needs everybody to participate in the process,” he said.

The institution (NCRC) should work for 18 months to produce the permanent constitutions before the end of the transitional period as stipulated in the Revitalized Peace Agreement; the process has not started.

 

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