Africa-Press – South-Sudan. It is confirmed that the re-unification of military command and the graduation of unified forces would be in the first or second week of next month.. This came
after the presidency chaired by president Salva Kiir Mayardit in a meeting held three days ago reached an agreement to have the long a waited exercise to take
place within a month. Confirming this development, the South Sudan Peoples’ Defense Force (SSPDF) spokespersonLulRuai Kong said this move was a result of the meeting of the president who came to an
agreement that indeed the re-unification of military command would take place because it had taken long and created anxiety among the public. “The re-unification will take place within the first week of November because the
task that has been given to us which is the screening and putting them in military reformation is expected to be completed within four weeks” Lul said.
He revealed that the major steps that were still pending were the screening and reformation of the military forces. “We are going to have a joint team being sent to the greater region and their mandate
will be to screen all the forces and when they are done, they will be put in their respective formation” he added. “When we are done with screening what is left is the presidency to unify the command,
graduate the forces and then followed by deployment” he explained. He added that during the screening those who would be legible to be in SSPDF were those who
would met the screening criteria. “When you are screened there are requirements that you must meet for example you must be physically fit, mentally sound and a South Sudanese National” he added.
He revealed that after the screening process, Military officers who qualified to be in the command would be confirmed by the President of the Republic of South Sudan.
“For those who qualified to Join SSPDF based on the formation, the list is going to be
approved by the president because it is his prerogative, for anybody to be an officer in SSPDF his confirmation will be done by the president at his capacity
as the commander in chief,so the nominees of the other parties are going to be approved by the president” Lul explained. “This move was taken as a result of the presidency when t they said they graduation of
forces had taken too long and it is the high time for the process to be speeded up. The president asked how much time do SSOA and IO needed to complete the process but both agreed that four weeks was enough” he added.