CEPO Executive Director Edmund Yakani. | Photo by Radio Tamazuj.

Civil society activist Edmund Yakani says the implementation of the revitalized peace deal has been hijacked by people who have no interest in the agreement.

Yakani, who is the Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization told Eye Radio that the mistrust between the political parties has contributed to the delay of the implementation matrix of the deal.

Yakani called on the peace parties to convene a presidency meeting to make concrete decisions on speedy and genuine implementation of the pending tasks.

Speaking to Eye Radio on Tuesday, the activist called on the leaders to deploy unified forces to stop inter-communal killings across the country.

“The mistrust that the political parties have towards each other had contributed to that, several people have no interest in the peace agreement are taking responsibility for deciding for the deployment,” he said.

So, I will say the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement is hijacked by people who had no interest in the agreement actually, for those are the things that I can put forward.”

“Because, if you say we don’t have money to redeploy the unified forces, where did we get money to fix the tarmac road in Thongpiny in the name of Pope Francis?”

“So, will the Tarmac road in the name of Pope Francis protect the lives of our citizens than if we deploy the unified forces, we could have stopped the incident in Kajo-Keji which claimed 27 innocent lives, we could have stopped the incident in Gomruk, we could have to stop unknown gunman, what the tarmac road be.”

Yakani also said leaders should avoid political reservations that are based on a deficit of trust and confidence in working together.

He appeals to the unity government to allocate resources for the implementation of the roadmap.

“The government has not disseminated the agreement, until today if you go to the government office and talk about the agreement, they will tell that they want to disseminate the agreement, are you disseminating in the road map which is coming to the finishing point?”

On the weekend, Pope Francis called on South Sudanese leaders to immediately end the suffering of the South Sudanese people by restoring lasting peace.

The pontiff then appealed to the people of South Sudan to lay down their “weapons of hatred” at an open-air mass on the final day of his pilgrimage to the country.