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Ms Joy Kwaje Eluzai

Herald Reporter
A six-member delegation from South Sudan National Legislative Assembly’s foreign affairs and international co-operation committee arrived in Harare yesterday on a four-day study visit.Speaking after arrival at the Harare International Airport yesterday, head of delegation Ms Joy Kwaje Eluzai said the visit was important for her delegation as South Sudan continued to learn from established democracies like Zimbabwe.

“As you are aware that we have just gained our independence and for us to grow we do not have to invent the wheel, but to learn from other established countries like Zimbabwe,” she said.

“Zimbabwe has an established parliamentary system and we are here to learn on how we can sustain such a system as a young democracy.”

The South Sudanese delegation was received by Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Committee chairperson Cde Enock Porusingazi and its member Cde Tafanana Zhou.

Ms Eluzai said Zimbabwe was a stable country with established systems of governance and democracy that were some of the best in Africa.

“It is with this in mind that we would like to tap into this knowledge of how the Zimbabwean Parliament plays the role of providing an oversight to ensure good governance is maintained in the country,” she said.

Cde Porusingazi said the study visit by the South Sudanese was part of an exchange programme that would in the future see Zimbabwe parliamentarians make a reciprocal visit.

“South Sudan is a virtually new State with a new parliament and their visit to Zimbabwe is an opportunity for us to show them our governance structures that have ensured peace since independence,” he said.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July 2011 as the outcome of a 2005 peace deal that ended Africa’s longest-running civil war. An overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted in a January 2011 referendum to secede and become Africa’s first new country since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993.