Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The government of South Sudan has created three bank accounts in which citizens and well-wishers are requested to make financial contributions to facilitate the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement.
In a statement seen by The City Review, the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Martin Elia Lomuro, said the accounts were opened with the Central Bank as per the resolution of a meeting held in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum in October 2018.
“This is to inform the citizens of South Sudan, well-wishers, partners, and donors National Pre-Transitional Committee (NPTC) has opened all the three bank accounts at the Bank of South Sudan as per the resolution of its first meeting, held in Khartoum from 21-22 October 2018, and endorsed by the National Council of Ministers in its regular meeting held on Friday 26th October 2018,” the statement read in part.
According to further details shared with The City Review, the accounts include National Pre-Transitional Committee Funds for South Sudanese Pounds with the account number 00269191294239, National Pre-Transitional Committee Funds for United States Dollars with account number 00269211295177.
The third account goes with the name NPTC Partners Funds, which is also reserved for the United States Dollars under the account number 00269211296178.
The development comes days after Mr Lomuro made an appeal to the citizens and well-wishers to make contributions to support the implementation of the slow-paced peace deal.
“The world over, people help their governments. South Sudanese can contribute money or food to make the peace process move forward,” the minister said in an interview with Radio Miraya.
Lomuro also revealed earlier that the government was finding difficulties in implementing the peace agreement, especially Chapter One, which involves the allocation of political positions.
“The agreement has eight chapters featuring 181 articles and 553 sub-Articles containing 2000 activities that each required high monetary cost to be implemented with series of difficulties,” Lomuro said during the 21st Monthly meeting by the Revitalized Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission.
Public backlash
However, the plea from the minister did not go down well with the South Sudanese citizens, who mostly treated it with contempt. “The country is not [poor]; the country is rich. We have the oil revenue and income from non-oil collections. On top of this, where will the citizens get that money he is talking about? Does he want to deduct from the SSP 3,000 we received to give for peace implementation? That is the silliest request ever,” a civil servant who spoke anonymously said.
Edmund Yakani, Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO), said Lomuro’s appeal caught him off-guard. “That caught me by surprise. It was so disturbing because that is escaping responsibility, and secondly if the government does not have money to implement the agreement, why are we seeing daily renovations of government buildings…we can see contributions like the SSP20 million and V8 given to King Gbudue recently,” he said.
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