President Salva Kiir Mayardit has ordered the establishment of a high-level technical committee to operationalize the South Sudan Official Gazette and upgrade the official website of the Office of the President, in a move aimed at strengthening transparency, legal certainty and the integrity of government communications.
The directive, announced on Monday through the state-owned South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC), seeks to create a secure, centralized and sustainable national system for publishing official state documents, both in physical and electronic form.
Under the presidential order, the committee will be chaired by the Secretary-General of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan, with the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs serving as deputy chairperson.
Its membership includes senior officials from the Ministry of Information, Communication Technology and Postal Services, the National Communication Authority, and the Office of the President.
The committee has been tasked with operationalizing both the print and electronic versions of the Official Gazette, including designing a secure end-to-end publication workflow that incorporates encrypted digital verification to prevent manipulation, forgery or unauthorized alteration of official documents.
Once launched, the Gazette will serve as the authoritative platform for publishing the Constitution and its amendments, Acts of Parliament, presidential decrees and provisional orders, ministerial regulations, government notices and other legal instruments.
As part of the reform, the presidential website will be redesigned and enhanced to host the electronic Gazette.
The site will provide the public with secure, read-only access to official state documents, ensuring authenticity while protecting the integrity of executive communications.
The directive also instructs the committee to address a long-standing publication backlog by identifying, categorizing and preparing for gazetting all critical laws, republican decrees and resolutions enacted since 2011 that have not yet been formally published, a gap that has long raised concerns over legal clarity and enforcement.
To facilitate its work, the committee has been granted authority to co-opt technical experts, legal draftspersons and security consultants as needed. All government institutions have been directed to cooperate fully and submit original documents upon request.
President Kiir has given the committee 14 days to complete its technical assessment, workflow design and resource allocation plan.
The final submission must include a comprehensive operational report and the maiden edition Volume One of the South Sudan Official Gazette.
Following the submission, the president is expected to formally launch the physical Gazette, the e-gazette portal and the upgraded presidential website, marking the start of South Sudan’s new official national notification system.
The move follows a directive issued last week limiting on-air announcements on SSBC to the appointment or removal of vice presidents, governors, national ministers and deputy ministers.
Under the new protocol, documents bearing the president’s signature are classified as privileged executive communication and may no longer be photographed, scanned or shared online.
Presidential decrees effecting changes must now be transmitted confidentially to the relevant authorities such as parliamentary speakers, ministers or governors for internal execution, with the Office of the President barred from serving documents directly to appointees.
