By Bida Elly David<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chairperson of the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC) expresses deep concern over the delays in budget allocation, saying it has emerged as an obstacle to the constitutional-making process.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Riang Yer Zuor voiced his concerns during an orientation workshop organized for the newly appointed members of the NCRC.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as the budget is approved, we begin to go out for civic education campaigns, educating the citizens on a number of constitutional issues. After that, we will go consult with them to get their views,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The chair didn\u2019t disclose how much allocation they expect to kick-start their tasks, only said that they would first need to train their members while waiting for the budget.<\/p>\n Speaking to the media on Monday, Mr. Yer said their mandate is to ensure in-depth induction of the new members of the commission for efficient commencement of work and the completion of the process on time.<\/p>\n \u201cThe purpose of the workshop is to first bring the members of the commission together for the first time to carry out the official finishing of the constitution,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n He added that the official mandate of the commission is to review, revise, and adopt the internal documents or instruments of the commission such that they are operational.<\/p>\n He also stated that they have not yet been given a specific timeframe for accomplishing the document, even though the roadmap is soon reaching its deadline.<\/p>\n Mr. Yer underscored the importance of first preparing the team as the budget awaits approval.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the internal documents that we are yet to review and adopt is our work plan; in that work plan, there is a time frame with which we have to finish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As far as elections are concerned, the chair of the commission stated that they are yet to begin reviewing the document for the first time since their formation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe proposal we have done is in regards to the beginning and completion of the constitutional-making process that will come in a number of stages,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Yer noted that the commission is going to undertake a public awareness programme to understand the process of marking their first stage of work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first stage will involve the whole public; we will conduct civic education and public consultations on certain constitutional issues; this will be when the first draft of the constitution will be made,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n The NCRC boss further said the second stage will involve a conference where deliberations on the constitutional draft will be done for its approval.<\/p>\n \u201cThe national constitutional conference will first deliberate on the draft constitutional text, which is the foreign version, before its third stage,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Edmund Yakani, CEPO’s executive director, told the No. 1 Citizen Daily Newspaper that he expects the commission\u2019s leadership to have a clear action plan that defines civic engagement in constitutional drafting activities.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to see an important civic and political space for civil society, citizens, and political parties engaging them without any restriction,\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n He argued that it is the law of the land that requires people to have freedom of assembly, association, and speech.<\/p>\n Yakani urged the government to immediately fund the commission to perform their task to meet the deadline of the roadmap before the elections.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t have a constitution that\u2019s foreign-funded; it has to be government-funded, and we hope the government will finance it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The activist underpinned that constitution-making is one of the preconditions of the elections, saying if the politicians want the elections, this commission has to function quickly, which means it requires resources.<\/p>\n Mr. Yakani added that the constitution addresses one of the root causes of the conflict, urging it to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cMy worry is that the political elites may interfere with the definition of the root causes of the conflict when we are going through the constitutional making process,\u201d he expressed.<\/p>\n He warned the government against political interference in the constitutional-making process, saying it should be left to only the committee.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bida Elly David Chairperson of the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC) expresses deep concern over the delays in budget allocation, saying it has emerged as an obstacle to the constitutional-making process. Riang Yer Zuor voiced his concerns during an orientation workshop organized for the newly appointed members of[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Riang-Yer-Zuor-chairperson-of-NCRC-Photo-by-Bida-Elly-David.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20944,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942\/revisions\/20944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}