Necessary Unified Forces pictured during the graduation parade at John Garang Mausoleum. | 30th August 2022. | Photo: Lou Nelson.

The Minister of Information said Friday the government has completed the commissioning of middle and lower-ranking officers ahead of the anticipated deployment.

The unity government often blames the delay to deploy the unified forces partly on bloated opposition ranks hindering the unification of the command structure.

When asked by a reporter about progress in the deployment, Makuei said the issue of rank inflation has been addressed.

He stated that the peace parties have already submitted lists and they are in the process of making deployment, although he did not disclose the date.

Instead, he refused to rule out a possibility of the deployment being pushed to July.

“In terms of deployment of the forces, the month does not yet,” he said while answering questions from reporters.

“We are in the process of making the deployment, there are already submitted lists because the problem was not the deployment, but was the problem of commissioning of the officers at the middle and the lower echelon of the army.”

The government spokesperson added: “So this has been done now, so we are waiting for deployment after this.”

Micheal Makuei’s statement comes two weeks after the peace-monitoring body R-JMEC urged the national unity government to expedite the redeployment of unified forces.

So far, the unity government has graduated over 50,000 members of the Necessary Unified Forces – the first batch of the 83,000 forces provided for in the agreement.

But several months after their graduation, the forces have not been deployed.