While the cultural diversity of South Sudan was on show through the vibrant and energetic performances of multiple ethnic groups at an International Peace Day event in Juba, it was the collective desire for peace, democracy and a brighter future that attracted most attention.

Nineteen-year-old performer, Everlyne Batista, described her participation as an opportunity to put the trauma of conflict behind her and embrace feelings of unity and hope.  

“With peace, I can go to school, I can live without the stress I had before, including losing my relatives. That is the good news of the peace that I am enjoying now, even though everything is not all well. I want peace in South Sudan.”

Politics dominated discussions among the country’s leaders, civil society, and international peace partners at the event, particularly the extension of the transitional period of the government and postponement of elections for further two years.

Wearing a hat with the slogan, ‘peace is a right not a privilege’, civil society representative Edmund Yakani gave a fiery speech about the impact of the decision on the people of South Sudan.

“Unfortunately, we have seen our political leaders, and their various political establishments tend to treat peace for us as a privilege,” he said.

“Peace is not the responsibility for politicians to use it and keep us suffering in this economic crisis that we are in,” he said to applause from the crowd. “You have the responsibility, as our leaders, to make peace prevail in this country.”

“We are not suffering because peace requires the presence of donors. We are suffering because we need political leaders to say enough is enough to violence. Why are they spending millions of dollars to fight and buy guns, why can we not spend millions of dollars on ensuring the peace agreement is delivered?” said Edmund Yakani, from the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization.

The representative of the European Union described why it had not supported a resolution to extend the transitional period at a recent meeting between political leaders and peace partners.

“This was not a vote against the peace agreement. It was not a vote against peace. It was a signal of frustration and a message that this can’t be business as usual. A transition cannot go on forever,” said Ambassador Timo Olkkonen. “We need to see South Sudan, in the interests of peace, moving forward with its transition, forward with its democratization, forward with listening to its people in the formation of a permanent constitution. It is a question of a social contract and nation building,”

“We all want the country to go for elections, but we want to see elections that are peaceful, above all, transparent, free, fair and inclusive. When we evaluated, we found that this is not going to be possible,” explained keynote speaker, First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar Teny, citing numerous reasons for the extension, including the need to finalize the unification of forces, ensure the return of millions of South Sudanese refugees, resolve intercommunal conflict, determine the governance system, and agree on a permanent constitution.  

“These are the reasons why we decided it is best to extend for a period of 24 months. It is not for being in power. Many of us want to see the people of South Sudan elect their leaders but in an environment which is conducive for them to exercise their right. If we drive them into an election which is not conducive, in the end, we will be blamed for this because we know our people.”

The First Vice President pointed to the challenges facing the country, including the spillover of the Sudan conflict and a lack of revenue. He repeatedly stressed that financial support will be needed to implement the peace agreement and deliver elections.

On behalf of the Troika (Norway, the United Kingdom and United States), the United Kingdom Ambassador, Guy Warrington, expressed deep disappointment and frustration at the persistent failure to implement key benchmarks in the agreement, despite the international community providing significant financial and other support for many years.

“Peace remains our priority. It drives everything we do,” he said. “We, the Troika, remain convinced that peace can best be secured through legitimate and peaceful elections and that South Sudan’s leaders bear a collective responsibility to act with urgency to create the necessary conditions for such elections to take place.”

 The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, pointed to this year’s theme: “Nurturing a culture of peace: our collective responsibility” as particularly relevant to the current situation.

“This theme reminds us that peace can only be achieved or secured together and it can only be sustained when there is a political will, a common purpose and shared aspirations. In my view, South Sudan still has some work to do to develop those shared ambitions to cherish its collective aspirations,” he said.

 “While this means that the people of this country are, yet again, being asked to show their patience in waiting for the long-promised peace and democracy benchmarks, this development does recognize the risk of renewed conflict, and the political vacuum caused as a result of the want of electoral preparations,” said Mr. Haysom. “But it also allows further opportunity for nation building and we recognize that the mountain that must still be climbed is steep. Urgency is required. Not a pause.”

Acting Minister of Peacebuilding, Losuba Wongo, acknowledged the collective responsibility for peace.

“Every individual has a role to play in nurturing peace in our communities and our hearts. Every act of kindness, every effort to understand each other and every dialogue brings us closer to lasting peace,” he said. “We have endured too much hardship, displacement and loss of life, yet amongst those challenges, we have demonstrated incredible strength and unity. Peace is not merely a dream; it can be achieved together”  UNIMISS

Had parliament not repealed the Budget Act of 2001 in 2014, a law designed to regulate the executive's excesses in the budgeting process, the ongoing contest over resource allocation between the executive and the legislature would not have arisen, the originators of the law have said.

The Budget Act originated from a private member's bill proposed by former Buzaya MP, Isaac Musumba. It aimed to empower parliament, giving it an active role in the budgeting process, and preventing MPs from merely rubber-stamping the budgets presented by the ministry of Finance.

Since its enactment, the law played a vital role in ensuring transparency and resource allocation while enabling parliament to propose alternative economic policies based on thorough analysis conducted by the Parliamentary Budget Office.

So good was the law that it even became a benchmark for parliamentary oversight, earning praise across Africa and Commonwealth nations, including recognition from the World Bank. Many African countries followed Uganda’s example, establishing budget offices within their parliaments to enhance their role in scrutinizing and guiding the budgeting process.

Despite these achievements, the Ugandan government pushed for the repeal of the Budget Act, arguing that elements of the law should instead be integrated into the Public Finance Act which was eventually passed in 2014. The ministry of Finance asserted the need to consolidate laws governing budget planning and financial management under one umbrella.

Under pressure from the executive, MPs reluctantly agreed to repeal the law, effectively discarding one of their most powerful tools to check the government’s power - particularly its ability to engage in unnecessary borrowing and supplementary expenditures.

Concerns over this drastic move were raised during the 7th Annual African Network of Parliamentary Budget Offices (AN-PBO) Conference held at the Speke Resort in Munyonyo, Uganda.

The conference drew participants from countries including Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Malawi, and Ghana. Many attendees expressed alarm at Uganda's decision to repeal a law that had provided legal backing to Parliament's Budget Office, emphasizing that it undermined the country's previous strides toward greater budget transparency.

Isaac Musumba, the architect of the Budget Act, was a key speaker at the conference. Reflecting on the law’s inception, Musumba revealed that the executive, led by President Museveni, had resisted the bill from the outset.

“When I proposed the Budget Act, I was trying to create a framework that would regulate the government’s control over the budget,” Musumba explained. He recounted how, despite being granted leave to introduce the bill, it took three years of persistent effort before the law was enacted.

"The second point of the Bill was that time must be given to members of parliament to make timely input in the budget process. They must have the opportunity to examine what the government is proposing. We put timelines for that in the proposed Budget Bill of 1999," said Musumba.

A cornerstone of the Budget Act was the establishment of a Parliamentary Budget Office, designed to assist MPs in making informed decisions on budgetary matters. The law also stipulated that the government could not exceed 3 per cent of the total approved budget for any financial year without prior parliamentary approval. This empowered sessional committees of Parliament to scrutinize and contribute to the budget before its approval.

Musumba lamented that after he and other proponents of the Act, such as Beatrice Kiraso, left parliament, the ministry of Finance moved swiftly to repeal the law.

“The people in Finance were in a hurry to repeal it. Those who knew the law’s significance were no longer in Parliament,” he remarked.

He also highlighted the political nature of budget allocation, noting that either the government or parliament could use the budget as leverage to undermine the other’s agenda.

“The budget can be an instrument used by either side parliament or government to bring down the other,” Musumba added.

This dynamic was recently on display when President Museveni declared that MPs had no authority to “shuffle the budget.” He even refused to sign the Appropriation Bill 2024 on June 22, accusing MPs of engaging in “budget corruption” through reallocation.

Even though MPs had relinquished some of their power by repealing the Budget Act, many continued to operate as if the law were still in place. However, the absence of the Budget Act has left the advice provided by parliament’s Budget Office without legal force.

Moses Byekabye, technical advisor for Economic Affairs at the ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development, believes that the repeal was rushed. As the first director of Parliament’s Budget Office (2000-2002), Byekabye witnessed firsthand how the Budget Act strengthened Parliament’s mandate to scrutinize the national budget.

“The repeal weakened parliament’s role as an implementer of the Budget Act, and that makes a big difference,” said Byekabye.

He noted that the resource allocation process is inherently political, with each side vying for control. According to Byekabye, without the capacity to focus on strategic priorities, parliament cannot be effective. The Budget Office, he argued, helped restore balance in the tug-of-war over budgetary control, ensuring Parliament could fulfill its oversight role.

In summary, the repeal of Uganda's Budget Act represents a troubling regression in budgetary oversight. While the government may have succeeded in consolidating financial regulations, it has also stripped Parliament of a critical tool for ensuring transparency and accountability in the allocation of national resources. By URN / The Observer

In the starkest admission of the failures of his new university funding model, President William Ruto last Monday set up a 129-member committee to review the contentious framework.

The decision came in the wake of public criticism over the funding model that many describe as discriminative and which has disenfranchised those from poor backgrounds.

Faced with the choice of either keeping or shelving the model, the Head of State chose to engage another task force of sorts, never mind it had been developed through a similar body led by Raphael Munavu, a former university lecturer. 

Prof Munavu’s Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms, which engaged multiple stakeholders, had proposed far-reaching reforms, the most consequential of which being a review in university funding. 

If the recommendations are discarded, it could mean that part of the Munavu’s recommendations and the experiment that the funding model has been, go down the drain. That has been the path for many reports of task forces, the government’s responses to emerging issues, established since independence.

Ruto’s move, days after he unveiled a strategic framework to implement reforms in the National Police Service, exposed his love for task forces, an obsession that successive governments have failed to shake off over the years. 

The framework was developed by a committee led by Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo based on the recommendations of a task force on police reforms led by former Chief Justice David Maraga.

It is unclear whether the government will fully implement Maraga’s recommendations, but the signs do not look promising. The Head of State recently said it would cost Sh106 billion to implement all of the proposals, an amount not at the government’s disposal.  

“The required funds will largely be provided for from the ex-chequer and from other partners, whom we will engage,” said Ruto.

And so Maraga’s recommendations are also likely to end up gathering dust in some government office, given the budgetary constraints that may hinder its full implementation.

Ruto has expressed his commitment to implement the proposals, somewhat eliminating the previous hurdle in the enactment of the recommendations, political goodwill. Indeed, he embraced the Munavu proposals with open arms, rolling it out. 

Similarly, the government seems invested in the Pending Bills Verification Committee (Nadco), formed in September last year, granting hope to contractors the government owes. Its effectiveness will be gauged on whether the State eventually clears its pending bills.

But Ruto has faltered in other aspects such as on the National Dialogue Committee’s proposals. For most of the time, he had seemed to string along the committee, formed in the wake of the opposition’s anti-government protests last year.

Before Ruto’s broad-based deal with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, opposition figures had lamented over the government’s non-commitment in implementing Nadco recommendations. Such complaints have featured over the years in the wake of costly public inquiries, building mistrust among the citizenry.

When the President proposed a 100-member task force to look into the issues of youthful protesters who brought his administration to its knees, Generation Zs and Millennials opposed it as another effort to hoodwink them.

They also argued that it made no sense that the government would need a committee to talk about issues they had been talking about on social media, about which the government knew but was unwilling to act on.

The same argument featured when the President proposed to set up a team to lead a forensic audit of the country’s public debt. The Law Society of Kenya, whose president, Faith Odhiambo, was nominated to serve in the committee, rejected the task force as infringing in the role of the Office of the Auditor General.

Ruto has suffered another blow when he tried to set up an inquiry into the Shakahola massacre, which claimed more than 400 lives. High Court judge Lawrence Mugambi found that its formation violated the Constitution.

“The President’s action in establishing a Commission of Inquiry and assigning it the parallel mandate to those assigned by the Constitution to Independent Offices and Commissions and various legislation undermines their powers and authority and is thus unconstitutional,” ruled Justice Mugambi.

But the President had successfully set up a parallel one to recommend the legal and regulatory framework governing religious organisations led by Rev Mutava Musyimi, which submitted its report to him in July. These fate has befallen previous other teams, including BBI. By Brian Otieno, The Standard