The government has termed calls for the 2022 elections premature and unjustified. The Minister for Presidential Affairs Nhial Deng Nhial said in a statement on Monday that actualising the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) took time and it would only be prudent to recoup that lost time to complete the implementation of the deal.

“The call for early elections in 2022 is again without justification. It must be borne in mind that the actual inauguration of the (R-TGONU) following the conclusion of the Agreement in September 2018 took some time,” Nhial said in a statement.

“Hence the time lost must be recouped so that there is adequate time to complete all the tasks of the transition before elections are held,” he added.

Nhial made the statement in response to activist Dr Peter Biar Ajak, who took to the floor of the US Foreign Relations Committee to accuse South Sudanese government of human rights abuse and corruption.  Ajak called on the western powers to press for an election in South Sudan come next year.

But Nhial also said the government is committed to mopping out all the illegal arms currently in the hands of the civilian to clear the intermittent regional conflicts.

“Dr. [Peter Biar] Ajak himself would acknowledge the ultimately it becomes imperative that these illegal arms are collected and disposed of in a manner that ensures they never find their way back again into the hands of those from whom they were taken in the first place.

“The on-going disarmament process that is regulated by law is essentially a peaceful exercise whereby Chiefs and Traditional leaders solicit the voluntary surrender of weapons from their people.

 “However, in the event that the use of force becomes unavoidable the Government will not hesitate to use it to save lives and preserve law and order.’’

The Revitalised Agreement on Conflict Resolution in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) stipulates that the country needs to hold an election upon the expiry of the term of RTGoNU.  According to the timelines running from 2018, the country ought to be ushering a democratically elected government in 2022 if all the chapters of the agreement shall have been implemented.