CEPO Executive Director Edmund Yakani. (Photo: Awan Moses/Eye Radio).

A civil society activist said the South Sudan government should now refrain from “selective implementation” of provisions of the peace accord after extending the transitional period by two years.

Edmund Yakani, the Executive Director of Community Empowerment Organization said the extension of the transitional period will be mean nothing unless the peace parties build trust and work in collaborative manner.

He said the peace mechanisms should equally be funded if the transitional leadership is to see positive impact of their decision to lengthen their tenure.

“The newly extended transitional period can count only if the presidency and the leadership regains trust and confidence for collaborative political work, stops the practice of selective implementation of the R-ARCSS provisions, and selective funding of the R-ARCS mechanisms,” Yakani said.

Most chapters of the 2018 peace accord including the Security Arrangement, Transitional Justice, Humanitarian Assistance and Reconstruction, Resource, Economic and Financial Management, Transitional Justice, Accountability, Reconciliation and Healing have not been fully implemented.

The training and redeployment of the necessary unified forces which was supposed to be completed within about eight (8) months, is lagging far behind. More 50,000 peace force graduated in the first phase have not been fully deployed and the second phase has not started.

The activist also warned of political manipulations in sponsoring defection in the security sector as such would jeopardize implementations of the remaining tasks.

He added that failure to finance the peace implementations mechanism and lack of regular presidency meetings to assess implementations of the pending tasks in the peace agreement will mean the extension is another waste of time.

The activist suggested that the Nairobi peace process known as Tumiani Initiative is an opportunity for politically transitioning South Sudan violence to peace, arguing that some elements in the unity government are stifling the peace negotiations.

“The attitude of fighting the spirit of inclusive governance for delivering implementable political transitional processes through the Tumiani Initiative is the beginning of the failure of the spirit and intentions for the extension of the newly transitional period.”

“Already within the RTGoNU leaders’ splits over Tumiani Initiative are taking deep roots and creating new political cliques/allies across party lines.”