President Salva Kiir has blamed the delay of his government to integrate the SPLA-IO faction into the national army on lack of financial resources and unnamed groups he described as anti-peace.

This comes during his speech while addressing the members of parliament at the opening of the second session on Tuesday.

“Last year I declared the need to integrate all the forces by the end of May 2017 in order to achieve the goal of one national army. We are working diligently to meet this deadline, but we are facing serious challenges. One of the challenges is the establishment of the cantonment sites for SPLA-IO forces,"said Kiir.

President Kiir pointed out that his government has been facing difficulties to canton the soldiers into the designated sites in the country."This is because when they get there, they are attacked on the site by those who are anti-peace. Second, given the limited financial resources, TGONU (Transitional Government of National Unity) has not been able to resource the sites adequately," he said.

The South Sudanese leader appealed to the guarantors of the signed peace agreement and international partners to help the parties in achieving this object.

In August last year, Kiir announced that his government would integrate all armed dissidents by May 2017 to allow creation of unified national army.

Photo: SPLM-IO soldiers arrive in Juba last year/ Radio Tamazuj