South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Benjamin Takpiny
The Interim Chairperson of the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Charles Tai Gituai has called upon the international community and friends of South Sudan to support the permanent constitution-making process.
Gituai is quoted in a latest report on the Status of Implementation of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (RARCSS) to have asked international partners and friends of South Sudan to directly fund some of the critical mechanisms, civic education, and capacity building.
The report covered the period of 1st April to 30th June 2024.
Gituai said that the National Constitutional Amendment Committee (NCAC) has successfully concluded its mandate, reviewed and drafted amendments to 24 pieces of legislation, as per the Revitalized Peace Agreement and handed over all the amendment bills to the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.
“However, plans to do an official handover of their activities’ report to the RTGoNU have not yet materialized. During this reporting period, the RTGoNU disbursed to the NCAC members about $500,000 to cover a portion of outstanding allowances owed to the members,” it said.
It noted that during this reporting period, the reconstituted National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC) received a paltry $800,000 to facilitate its work.
“The NCRC held a five-day validation workshop in April which adopted all its revised internal governing instruments such as Rules of Procedure, Action Plans, Budget, Organogram, and Civil Education and Public Consultation Manual. In June, it held another capacity building workshop on comparative constitution-making processes with support from IGAD,” it said.
It noted that NCRC has continued to receive support from partners like United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) towards its internal readiness to commence the permanent constitution-making process, even as it awaits a political decision on the timelines, given the Roadmap schedule for the end of the Transitional Period.
“In their briefing to the RJMEC Constitutional Affairs Working Committee, the NCRC appealed for additional resources to, inter-alia, enable the Commission to renovate its premises, construct offices for the Constitutional Drafting Committee (CDC), establish storage facility for civic education and public consultation materials, acquire furniture and other items for office use, and to launch nation-wide civic education and public consultation campaigns to ensure that the constitution making process is indeed people driven,” it said.
Gituai urged the Transitional National Legislative Assembly to expedite the enactment of all pending amendment bills, including the NGO, CTRH and CRA Bills.
He again called upon the TNLA to support the process of providing the requisite funding of the constitution and election making processes by passing the necessary spending and budget bills to secure funding for their operationalization.
Gituai said that with elections scheduled for December 2024, the ongoing dialogue by the Parties to the Agreement should help bring clarity on the best way forward.
“It is therefore important to consider that while some progress has been made in establishing the key institutions, charged with the conduct of the constitution-making and elections processes, a lot remains to be done to fully equip them to carry out their mandates,” he said.
