South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, arrived on Tuesday in South Sudan to assess the implementation of the 2018 revitalized peace agreement, as the youngest nation prepares for it’s first ever general election slated for December 2024.
Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Ramadan Mohamed Abdallah Goch, said that Ramaphosa during his three-day itinerary will meet with all signatories to the revitalized peace agreement.
“The visit of the South African president is very important, because we do believe that as a peace guarantor, he will sit with the leaders of South Sudan to see how South Sudan is prepared for the elections, and we are assuring everyone that all institutions are ready for the elections to be conducted in the republic of South Sudan,” Goch told journalists in Juba.
Goch disclosed that the visiting head of state will also meet with members of the reconstituted National Election Commission (NEC), the Political Parties Council (PPC) and the National Constitutional Amendment Committee (NCAC) to assess election preparedness.
Ramaphosa is accompanied by Grace Naledi Mandisa Pando, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation.
Goch said the parties to the peace agreement have made encouraging progress in implementation of the security arrangements under chapter 2 of the peace deal.
He revealed that they have so far trained more than 56,000 Necessary Unified Forces (NUF) from different armed groups, adding some of them have already been deployed to some parts of the country.
Goch said they are nearing the second phase of training of soldiers in various centers across the country
South Africa is among the peace guarantors to the South Sudan peace process alongside war-torn Sudan and Uganda.
Since 2016, Ramaphosa had attempted to reunite the splinter factions of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) under the 2015 Arusha peace agreement.
