CHIEF Justice Raymond Zondo has sworn in Deputy President Paul Mashatile as the acting President of South Africa on Saturday morning, 6 May, in Parliament, Cape Town.
This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to Bujumbura, Burundi, to participate in the 11th High-Level Segment of the Regional Oversight Mechanism (ROM) of the Peace, Security and Cooperation (PSC) Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes Region.
Mashatile will oversee state affairs until Ramaphosa returns from a summit addressing the Sudan conflict.
Spokesperson to the President, Vincent Magwenya, said the summit will start on Saturday.
He said the PSC Framework, known as the Addis Ababa Agreement, was signed on 24 February 2013 through an AU and UN-brokered Framework aimed at stabilising the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
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He added that at the time, signatories to the agreement included Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In early 2014, Kenya and Sudan became the 12th and 13th signatories of the Framework.
“The PSC Framework’s key mandate is to end recurring cycles of devastating conflict in eastern DRC which impact on stability and development in the Great Lakes region. The framework also aims at addressing the root causes of conflict in eastern DRC and the Great Lakes Region,” he said.
Magwenya said the Summit takes place against the backdrop of the deteriorating political and security situation in the Eastern DRC caused by a resurgence of the M23 Movement that has led to tensions between the DRC and Rwanda.
“President Ramaphosa is accompanied by Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Alvin Botes,” he said.
