The South Sudan Minister for East African Community Affairs, Deng Alor Kuol, has disclosed that the execution of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) is impeding plans in the country and participation in the regional and continental bodies.

Deng made the statement during the debate on the report of the committee on communication, trade and investment on the progress made in integrating the administration of custom of the Republic of South Sudan into the EAC Customs Union.

“The biggest issue in South Sudan is the issue of peace, we have just formed a new parliament and this new parliament is going to discuss and implement the peace agreement that is still a problem for us which is impeding a lot of things in South Sudan,” he said.

“But I think we are going to go ahead, with the implementation of the peace agreement, most of the areas I think are agreed and I think we will be able to implement,” he said.

He called for the support of the East African community in the implementation of the peace agreement and capacity building so that the country could build the right human resource.

“South Sudan needs capacity, and this is a very important area, we need capacity whether it is institutional or individual capacity building, and I appeal to our community to support us in capacity building,” he said.

“Even if we have money, policies can only be implemented by well trained and well-equipped human resource. I think we need capacity both in building our human resource and capacity also in our institutions.”

Right direction                                            

The minister said that when the budget is approved as part of the implementation of the peace agreement, South Sudan would soon clear its debts when the parliament approves the budget which he said contained 39 million meant for the implementation of the peace agreement.

“I agree with those of you who have raised the issues of our financial contribution to the East African Community because EAC is run by partner states and we have been far behind in meeting our commitment to our community,” he said.

“We have just presented to parliament the budget that includes all the things that you have raised. The 39 million that we are supposed to pay to the East African Community, and it is not only EAC, we have other regional bodies that we are members of even with the African Union, we have not been able to meet our commitments.”

Deng added that the country was in the process of harmonizing domestic laws with the laws of the East African Community to ease integration.

“We are trying right now to ask the parliament to harmonise our domestic laws and the East African laws,” he said.

Sitting adjourns

Last week, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) suspended discussions on the integration of South Sudan into the East African Community single customs as the South Sudan Minister for the East African Affairs did not show up.

The chairperson of the EALA South Sudan Chapter, Dr Anne Itto Leonardo, stated that the roadmap for South Sudan’s integration into the EAC Single Customs had already expired in 2019.

“The parliament decided that, no debate can be undertaken on (South Sudan Integration) because South Sudan in the person of the Minister for the East African Affairs, (was) needed to be present to be able to answer questions on behalf of the Republic of South Sudan regarding the roadmap, you know, what (would) have happened after three years, now it is 2 years after the roadmap expired,” Dr Anne Itto.

She cited lack of report from South Sudan about the directives of the council of ministers to the country through the Ministry of East African Affairs, as well as the EAC Secretariat.

“The grace period for integrating South Sudan into the East African Community single custom was three years, this was supposed to be from 2016 to 2019, but we realized that there was no report from our government and there was also no report from the part of the Secretariat,” Dr Anne said.

“And the other thing is also that there were a lot of council directives through the Ministry of the East African Affairs to the Republic of South Sudan. Similarly, there were a lot of council directives to the East African Community Secretariat regarding financing of this program which is roadmap but also capacity building, we found no report on either side regarding these directives whether they have been undertaken or not undertaken. So, we saw it as a very serious issue and this report was presented to the parliament.”