Jenifer James
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The spokesperson of the South Sudan Persons Defence Forces (SSPDF), Maj Gen. Lul Ruai Koang, said only the registration from the military command was holding the deployment of the forces.
“The unification of the military command is responsible for the delays in the deployment of the forces, and the political statement that was made on Friday is yet to be translated into military command,” Lul told The City Review in an interview on Sunday.
Put to task by the press after the Council of Ministers meeting on Friday, government spokesperson Michael Makuei downplayed the delays as he emphasised that the earmarked funds for the exercise had not ended.
Makuei also said the government was just waiting for the approval of a list to actualise the deployment.
“We (the government) are in the process of developing the forces; there is already a list that was submitted,” Michael said.
“The problem is not the deployment, but the problem is the commissioning of the officers at the middle and lower echelon of the army, so this has been done,” he said.
He added that there were no funds available, saying, “The money that was approved by the cabinet for the security arrangement is not yet in our hands.”
Last month, the cabinet approved SSP 3.6 billion to facilitate the deployment of the first batch of the necessary unified forces, who were graduated in the first phase and are still in the training centres.
The cabinet approved the money after the minister of peacebuilding, Stephen Par Kuol, requested it for the security arrangement process in the country.
“The security arrangement is divided into two phases: phase one and phase two. So, he presented the budget for phase two, which was for buying food and other arrangements for the deployment of the graduated forces for phase one,” Makuei said.
Last year, South Sudan reached a milestone in the security arrangement by graduating over 50,000 unified forces ready to be deployed, but the process continued to be delayed due to some circumstances known only to the officials.
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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