South Sudan’s only functioning arm of government has been roiled with Covid-19 infections among the ranks of top officials, threatening to shut down main operations.

The officials initially sat on the defunct High Level Taskforce on Covid-19, a team created by President Salva Kiir to help advise on how to tackle the novel coronavirus disease.

The officials ran South Sudan’s only fully functional arm of government under the structure created by the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), a document signed on by various parties in 2018, but which was only implemented from February this year.

Yoane said that the surge of Covid-19 cases in the executive wing threatened the national legislature as well, a view shared by Jame Kolok, the executive director for Foundation for Democracy and Accountable Governance, a local NGO.

“The bottom-line likely to be caused by Covid-19 on the executive wing is, first, it will delay full establishment of unity government.