President Kiir is running out of patience over Machar’s delaying tactics – Ms Kumba
SPLM-IG acting Secretary-General Jemma Nunu Kumba speaking to South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) at the SPLM House in Juba on Saturday, May 9, 2020. (Photo credit: SSBC)
May 9, 2020 (SSNN) — South Sudan President, H.E. Salva Kiir Mayatdit, has exhausted all his patience allowing his first deputy and SPLM-IO chairman, Dr. Riek Machar, make important decisions, a close aide to Kiir said Saturday.
This comes a day after a plan by president Kiir to divide states between the parties to the revitalized peace agreement was rejected by Machar and his party, SPLM-IO.
In a matter of a few hours groups such as National Democratic Movement of Dr. Lam Akol and a few others joined Machar’s bandwagon and now the issued is escalating to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The plan would have seen Kiir’s SPLM-IG faction adding six more states to their hidden administrative areas.
According to a document that emerged on May 7th, 2020, the SPLM-IG would have squandered Unity, Eastern Equatoria, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Lakes, Warrab and Central Equatoria states on top of Pibor, Ruweng and Abyei administrative areas.
Machar’s SPLM-IO which sought to take the Upper Nile state was given – as per Kiir’s plan – three states of Western Bahr el-Ghazal, Western Equatoria and Jonglei.
South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) would have got one states of Upper Nile.
Reacting to the plan, Machar said in a statement on Friday that Kiir’s decision to divide the states unilaterally violates the agreement which provides for the conduct of the process taking into account the prominence of each party in the states.
Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the SPLM-IG Political Bureau in Juba on Saturday, Jemma Nunu Kumba, the acting Secretary-General of the group, said Machar was intransigent and was not ready to compromise on the distribution of the states.
“The chairman of the SPLM-IO has his own position which he does not want to compromise in terms of the states that he wants” Kumba said.
“The chairman [Kiir] has tried his best to persuade Dr. Riek Machar to accept the states that have been allocated to him because we believe the states are all the same and the agreement provides for the distribution of these states regardless of which state goes to who” she stressed.
The senior government official said the delayment is the direct outcome of Machar’s intransigence saying the SPLM-IG was concerned about the delay urging Machar to compromise.
“So, this is what has delayed the agreement and the chairman, who is also our president, has tried his best and is exhausting his patience to allow Riek to make decisions” she said.
Nunu calls on Dr. Machar and other oppositions to make compromises in the best interest of peace so that states and local governments can be formed.
“For us as a ruling party, we are concerned by the delay which is coming from the SPLM-IO. The political bureau urges Machar to make a move and bring [to] an end this stalemate on the allocation of the states because now there is a vacuum in the states, there are no governments and therefore we would like to make sure that governments are put in place so that the people on the ground get the services they need,” she further said.
Facebook Comments