S. African President Cyril Ramaphosa to attend National Dialogue meeting tomorrow

JUBA – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Tuesday attend, via video call, the opening session of South Sudan’s National Dialogue conference which is set for tomorrow, Tuesday, according to a senior government official.

Michael Makuei Lueth, the information minister and government spokesman also told Sudans Post in an exclusive interview this morning that Ramaphosa will give remarks during the opening session in the afternoon.

“Yes the President  of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa will attend the opening session tomorrow via video conference. He will give remarks at the end of the process on Tuesday afternoon,” Makuei said, adding that other regional representatives he didn’t name “will also attend the important function.”

Vincent Mark Wanga, the head of communications and information of the South Sudan National Dialogue Secretariat said delegates from across the country will attend the conference.

“We have invited almost 500 participants from all over South Sudan who are expected to arrive and join this conference. So, as of this week, Juba will be full of delegates from the states. As you might know, the National Dialogue began with grassroots consultations, and from each county, we selected nine participants to come to the regional conference and from the nine, we asked them to select three participants to come for the national dialogue. So, we have three from each county across South Sudan. We have 79 counties in South Sudan,” he said in an interview quoted by Radio Tamazuj.

He stated that all political parties in the country have confirmed participation in the conference except the SPLM-IO.

“All the political parties have confirmed their participation in this program but we only have SPLM-IO that are not going to participate in the dialogue,” Mark said.

“I was among the delegates who attended the meeting with Dr. Machar and our co-chair told him that he is now part of the government and the national dialogue is the voices of the people of South Sudan. It is not the voice of President Kiir or any leader. Our co-chair asked Dr. Machar why he did not join this process. He said it was something good but at a wrong time,” he added.

The National Democratic Movement (NDM) has also distanced itself from the conference.