The Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) on Thursday convened its 27th monthly meeting in Juba and sounded an alarm saying that with the beginning of the 24-month extended Transitional Period, implementation of the Roadmap lags and a lot remains to be done.
RJMEC Chairperson Amb. Maj. Gen. Charles Tai Gituai told the meeting that they expect a sense of urgency to deliver on the promises of the Roadmap toward peaceful and democratic elections in December 2024.
“It is expected that there will be a renewed focus on the timely implementation of the critical pending tasks of the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS), dedicated funding by the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) going forward,” he said.
In his detailed assessment of implementation, Amb. Gituai said, “critical timelines have been missed in the implementation of governance tasks of the Roadmap.”
“For example, according to the Roadmap, by now both the Political Parties Council and the National Elections Commission should have been reconstituted,” he said. “These are two critical bodies required for the process of conducting credible elections. Further, the restructuring and reconstitution of the various commissions and institutions at the national level should also have been completed by now.”
According to Amb. Gituai, there is an urgent need for all those involved, starting with the government to take concrete and deliberate steps to expedite the implementation of the critical pending tasks as per the Roadmap.
He commended the Presidency for the recent resolution of the contentious issue of the power of arrest and detention by the National Security Service (NSS), which he said delayed the passage of the National Security Service Bill.
“The spirit of this compromise is a valuable example which I hope can help guide the ongoing implementation of the Roadmap,” he said. “Given the time pressures in the Roadmap, I call upon the RTGoNU to demonstrate its ownership of the process and its commitment by availing the requisite resources to the implementing mechanisms and institutions clearly and predictably.”