Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The government in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Kingdom of Netherland have signed a four-year cooperation agreement project worth 14.14 US dollars aimed at providing legal aids, facilitating and strengthening government programs. Speaking to the media yesterday, Joseph Marko, the Director General for Administration and Finance in the Ministry of Justice who was the Representative of the Government during the signing ceremony of the agreement said that the money would help to strengthen the ongoing government projects to improve access to justice, security and human rights across the country not for paying people’s salaries.
“It’s not a project to pay salaries, it’s a project to strengthen the judiciary institutions with facilitation of trainings and extensions. For instance, if the police needs to be extended to community, instead, do they need transport, do they need transport or equipment? It’s strengthening, training and providing legal aids across the country to facilitate the programs the government needs to deliver,” said Marko. He revealed that they had a discussion with the Judiciary on the issue of considering a judiciary library where anybody wishing to understand the law could have access to the information through the use of the library. However, the Deputy Ambassador of Netherlands, the Head of Cooperation, Jan Huesken said thatall they wanted to do was to support the government to develop a critical step for the development of the country in its rule of law where everyone’s complaint could be addressed.
“All we want is to support the government of South Sudan to develop a critical step for the development of the country’s rule of law where everybody can benefit from whether you are vulnerable, whether you are a child, man or woman for as long as you feel grieved.You can settle your problem through the law and court not violence,” said Huesken. He stated that conflict has blocked and was still blocking the development of South Sudan.
Huesken revealed that there were a lot of programs made towards an inclusive, sustainable and correct society for development which takes time and often not realized.
