JUBA – President Salva Kiir has urged the members of the Revitalised Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA) to prioritise the interest of the country and avoid getting into traps of divisive politics.

On his parliamentary address in Juba on Monday, August 31, the head of state acknowledged that legislators would be swayed to serve the interest of the nominating parties but that should be a stumbling block to prevent them from playing their roles diligently.

‘‘You will also find many areas of agreement in your legislative agenda when the country and its people take centre stage in your deliberations. I know the parties who nominated you matter, but I call upon all of you to place the people of South Sudan above any narrow party interest,’’ the president stated.

He went on to praise the reconstitution of the legislative arm of government adding it served as a milestone for the country and a reminder to other 2018 peace agreement stakeholders that the government is committed to full implementation of the accord.

‘‘The steps we have taken and continue to take in this process should give our people, the IGAD region, African continent and the wider international community confidence that the agreement is being implemented despite delays,’’ he noted.

He went on to state that ‘‘we continue to implement the various chapters and provisions of the Revitalized Peace Agreement; we should always remember that our final mandate in this process is to hold free, fair, and credible democratic elections at the end of the Transitional Period’’.

‘‘This means, giving people the power to choose their leaders. And this is a collective responsibility that we must shoulder because it is the only way we can achieve political stability in our country.’’

Part of this is the graduation of forces which Kiir reaffirmed to be on course and it was only a matter of time for the government to prove many doubters wrong.

‘‘Already approximately 53,000 Forces composed of soldiers from all the parties to the Agreement are in training centres across the country. Our resolve to graduate these forces has been doubted, but I would like to assure you that necessary arrangements for their graduation are at advance stage,’’ he revealed.

The parliament is now expected to embark on the enactment of various bills that will operationalise certain chapters to ensure full implementation of the peace agreement.