By Eng Charles B. Kisanga, M Sc,
May 15, 2022 — 1973 to 1983 were golden days of Southern Sudan. There was no crude oil but the Government was perfect with salaries on time and even daily laborers never complained since their money was good enough to last a whole month.
Education was viewed highly and people took it as a prestige to enter universities or colleges. Students doing better in Sudan school certificates would even apply to go to military or police college. Military or Police jobs were considered a guaranteed enjoyable career for life. Your salary would build you a good house in the village while you even lived in Government House in the town after you graduated as an officer in the forces. Even Some secondary School teachers had accommodation provided for them, left over from the colonial days. You would have found a 2nd Lt well dressed and driving a Government car then. However today young people will tell you education is not the key to success in South Sudan because even illiterate individuals can be Governors and the illiterate criminal from the village can become the General and so why bother about education or even going to Military or Police college? This can be true to a great extent because all Institutions of Governance continue to be dismantled and remain with non-functional skeletons which are unable to hold the rule of law any more. This takes us to examine why things have gone so bad for the young nation South Sudan whereby some scholars now term us, “ South Sudan” –‘A Lesson on How not to build a nation’.
Well the SPLM revolution was launched by John Garang because of many concerns of South Sudanese such as Islamisation, Arabisation and marginalization under those Institutionalized Government of Sudan. From 1983, War raged for 22 years until 2005 where we achieved CPA which led to full independent in 2011. People were thrilled and enthusiastic that we will now have better jobs and pay and services than those of Old Sudan because we are ruling over our own fates . They were soon going to be proven wrong.
First we started without any direction and soon those Institutions which worked well in Old Sudan were dismantled and replaced with a corrupt system whereby all state funds were siphoned and Institutions of Government were slowly dismantled to the extent that today nothing works any more like in old Sudan. Did you get attacked by criminals or had your house be robbed then you even need to pay money to open a case. You want treatment in Government hospitals then pay money. You even pay money to let police follow the case you opened. The Free education of Sudan is no longer there and Government schools which used to be common and efficient are replaced by private schools with high fees above salaries of everybody who are servants in the country.
Instead of having commanders from military or police colleges or others we have generals who came via rebel movements or nepotism. However we even fail to see that their privileges are taken care of and the Army and Police headquarters have been dismantled to the core where no cars or uniforms or dry ratios or even guns can be found. For the organized Forces you are supposed to get your own uniform or shoes at a cost maybe twice your salary. The stores are empty of ammunition and guns; as all have been sold to cattle rustlers or others to cause security in many communities. This is simply from the fact that the commanders salaries are so low they really need to sell anything possible in order to remain alive. The organized Forces offices barely function unless your office has some privileges that allow you to earn money. In Buluk Police Headquarters it is only the Traffic section works while other units are just leftover skeletons.
The same issue goes to many Government departments. The crux of the issues is that salaries have become of no value since 2015. The ministers salary of SSP20, 000 became worthless equivalent then to just $50 while the least pay of SSP300 then is now less than $0.6. Trying to improve the situation by increasing the pay to about ten times has done nothing really to help because the imported goods are rated at dollar rate and prices of commodities especially the basic ones are skyrocketing. Also higher taxes and illegal extortions on the goods coming into the country contribute to a rise in prices. So the salaries may need to go up by 1000% of that of 2015 to make meaningful income to civil servants and organized forces. But then can the Government afford when they cannot afford to pay the meager pay of even $3 a month? The currency was devalued with backing of Western countries (prescribed austerity measures which failed many times in other countries) and their organizations in Juba who claimed it could bring more money to the Government while it allowed them to render more services since the exchange rate fixed then was not helping them at all.
The demand to devalue currency by Europeans/US was another ploy to impose some form of colonization on South Sudan because now everybody wants to work for their organizations earning dollars while the South Sudan Government is nowhere. Any way devaluation made things worse and the looting and corruption and mismanagement continued and the foreign currency reserves were exhausted and the looters moved to the oil sector whereby tankers were now being off-loaded for individuals and the proceeds deposited to their private bank accounts.
Hence the balance or the little which found its way to the Government coffers could not handle the expenses of the Government anymore and so the Government started borrowing against future oil productions to the extent now we exhausted all the oil for the coming 5 years .And still the borrowing against the future continues since now the only thing Government gets from oil is around $50 million while actual expenditures of the Government runs into almost $200 million a month, something not reflected in the so called Budget of the country . Further we failed miserably to get money via the National Revenue Authority which is well composed of the gangs who swindle funds to their private accounts even using the very foreigners who were brought as prescriptions to block the siphoning of the collected funds.
It is a surprise that in one year the Government can borrow the equivalent of the claimed national budget yet they cannot pay salaries nor meet any service delivery. It can be verified that in 2020 to 2021 the Government borrowed about $600 million mostly with the claim that they were going to improve the economy affected by the pandemic and to pay salaries which was hardly paid yet budget for the year extrapolated could even be $1 billion since no budget was enacted for 2020/21. At the same time Former Finance minister Salvatore Garang presold crude oil to Afri-Exim Bank for $400 million. Why can we not see that all this money is borrowed for siphoning into pockets of the elites of the system? As a result why waste time claiming to make a useless budget which serves no purpose .Hypocrisy. Even this year’s Budget of $750 million can be seen straight forward as a scam because an oil rich country cannot have such a poor budget ( Uganda budget was around $12 billion compared) which is below the money being earned from oil by many folds. It looks as though the clique is actually making a budget so low that no one questions the other money not included in the National budget. At any rate the budget of a country must contain every expense itemized even if it means paid in kind like crude for building roads.
This bring into question the issue of appointing very incompetent people as Speakers of the National Assembly which actually renders Parliament irrelevant like the current RTNLA whereby they waste time on petty things instead of handling the collapsing economy. You get surprised the Speaker formed committees to table increment of their own pay without looking at the source of money that is supposed to pay each that SSP800,000 a month. Any way the Past of the Speaker speaks volume cause every Ministry she was appointed to head was left almost in ruins at the end of her tenure. The SPLM Party has been an example of dismantling where Party has been completely reduced to skeleton with cadres deserting as the bottom up system of Nunu failed to popularize the Party.
Please Honourables you are the one the Finance minister is supposed to beg you for money because the budget should be owned by you but not vice versa. Next incompetent is seen in the creation of committee for dress code. Why is it so scary to say the country is bleeding? We need the Financial Management Oversight Committee to take on the un-transparent use of crude oil and the borrowing of millions of dollars outside the Financial order of the Government. So the Parliament needs a strong Speaker who can be very independent minded and challenge the Government to look at the roads projects carefully which are being driven, as a way to claim to the citizens that development has commenced. Of course don’t count those projects paid for by foreign donors like Japan Freedom Bridge and Water.
You should look at ARC and Nile High Speed companies. These companies owned by those in Government have taken billions of dollars of oil money motivated by the fact the President would do anything to have roads built in South Sudan. I hear just from Juba to Luri the money spent is already $1 billion. Yet in terms of road building the 30 km section would cost no more than $30 million. So if we are going to build roads at exponential costs with billions going behind into the pockets of individuals; how much will it cost to finish the roads like the one to Rumbek even? It could mean $10 billion thereby oil would have been sold in advance beyond 2050. At any rate the projects will fail and roads will be back to square one.
Further, instead of making High way of just 2 lanes and 2 hard shoulders, the inexperienced companies have gone to make roads that approach 16 lanes, demolishing houses of people they cannot compensate for and cutting down millions of trees that help with the environment. These projects may soon turn to be white elephants if crude oil has been sold up to 2027 before they are even extracted. Of course the Minister of Finance now tried to deny the stamen of the sale of crude up to time but he has no explanation why despite rising prices of oil he cannot afford to pay salaries. Mr Minister if you prepare spreadsheets of oil uploading up to 2027 it means indeed you have sold crude in advance because the oil should be auctioned every time to higher bidder instead of looking into spreadsheets to find who is loading it and we cannot get extra money from rising prices because when you sold in advance you only get a fixed price and at a very discounted rate.
MPs should wake up to the duty and save the nation rather than making Parliament as house and wife thing whereby the wife only concerned with what clothe her husband is going to wear(attire). This is what is making everybody cry when they remember the old days of Sudan they that they were golden days. Of course today the ‘lootologists’ and clique are happy enjoying the fruits of their illicit gains and for them no system is better than this. But what about the common citizens? There is no future unless the country goes through hardship and very drastic changes which can mean more suffering than even now. Let nobody deceive us that the salary can be increased. You cannot add spending in an economy running in the red. I don’t think the MPs who voted to increase their salary even to SSP800,000 a month cannot even enjoy any life at all. Soon or later the system will not be able to pay this even with increased borrowing against future oil production.
So the question now is what can be done to turn the country around? The World Bank and IMF has canceled any more loans to South Sudan pending reform and peace implementation. But the reforms cannot happen without the political will to change things and the same people sit in chairs who are looting the country. They cannot allow the change needed for economic turn around and the viability of our country. Without loans to finance any more Government spending, the only thing remaining is to continue borrowing from future oil production until we begin to sell imaginary crude oil of the future because the reserves are not infinite. I’m hereby suggesting 4 solutions to the Government under Kiir.
- Dismiss the Corrupt Cabinet.
The cabinet needs overhaul and reduction. Seriously the President needs to cut off the lootlogists, eaters and mafia. Why is it difficult to lay off somebody who already stole millions? The fear that this person will rebel is minimal because even if he rebels no one can support him or her because the suffering people are no longer interested in running after heavy eaters. Good example can be seen how Gen Malong has failed to attract the suffering masses to join his rebellion because all will say he was king of eating and now what? The President really wants to fire his cabinet and bring in fresh young technocrats among whom even the likes of Peter Biar regardless of his insults(not condoned); this type of prescription is what the country needs to heal . It will not be the first time a President dismisses his Government; around the world it has been done many times. The whole cabinet is dismissed and the President starts a fresh life to save his country. Our President thinks much that the ‘lootogists’ are the one helping him to move on but really never can rid himself of corrupt individuals and still have a great legacy saving the nation. We may need outsiders and independent community leaders to help in choosing new ministers because corrupt officials try to buy their way in again.
- Cut the Spending and Stop All Contracts
With the pill of Cutting Spending, we need to halt all road projects and examine the contacts and how these guys are getting paid. We cry about roads but it is not only roads being made, it is $billions of our oil money being eaten by the company owners who are no other than the military generals and Ministers in Government who own the companies behind the road project. The saying is that while the Government has no money to pay salaries but the road companies are getting millions directly being released with approval from the President’s office. Also they carry approval for loading crude oil production of the future. Development cannot be at the expense of the citizens and civil servants because we need roads then corrupt individuals are to build roads at 10 times the cost of building the same type of roads around the world. Such projects do turn into a white elephant indeed because they deplete every resource in the country and the country will be bankrupted indeed with none of those roads at the end. So instead of Parliament running to vote for enrichment themselves with pay rises they should have formed committees to scrutinize the new form of thefts in the name of roads and address them. So please move to halt and sort road projects before it is too late. If you build roads without future maintenance, I tell you that those roads will be a disaster within a few years.
- Reduce the Size of Organized Forces and Overhaul of some Civil servant posts too.
Third area to address is to forget the fear and move towards a small security force, meaning laying off thousands of soldiers and sending them to work in fields like farming and entrepreneurships . At any rate thousands of soldiers do not depend on salary any more. You can see army cars and trucks ferrying fire wood and charcoal daily in Juba; others are deployed to extort money from motorists around the country.. At any rate the current army list is inflated to hundreds of thousands so that the Generals can continue to eat from the ghost soldiers . In Western Equatoria as an example the Police force used to be around 3000 in 2015 but during the conflict many deserted to go to rebels seeking ranks and others were later sent to be part of the integrated units in Rajaf (they are stuck with no graduation and so salaries ) and only few hundreds remained yet the budget for 3000 continue which is one way the commanders can sustain themselves with the salary meant for large number of forces and it is the same story in all the states and administrative areas. It is the same story for the army bases. So let’s reduce this big list of forces and deal only with the real soldiers and then salary can be increased so that commanders do not need ghost names to survive. Also there are many unqualified directors and civil servants eating money only but no work delivered and it is time to get rid of them. It has been talked over many times but no action.
- Implement the Peace Agreement and the Financial Sector Reforms
Fourth is to let peace reign and the reforms prescribed by the Peace Agreement. You cannot make reforms also without firing the anti-reform elements of the system which takes us back to the solution of no 1 of firing the entire Government of mostly SPLM-IG plus the even the bad guys from the opposition because looting is by all sides by those who have the means and privilege to loot public funds. But without peace prevailing we cannot do anything. Worse problem is that people who find favor in the Government are those who undermine peace and security. When you promote tribal war like in WES where the Governor has been advocating for displacing Azande from their ancestral land of Tambura leading to atrocities he has continued to enjoy his seat .
The same in Maridi where Africano has been mobilizing and instigating the minority Baka tribe to wake up and chase Azande from their ancestral lands in Maridi and he gets rewarded to loot even more at the National Revenue Authority in order to promote the anti-peace stand. So if we mean peace then we need to discourage those promoting violence and hatred among tribes as a way to keep people busy fighting each other without minding the country being dismantled and looted to non-existence.
With such solutions as enumerated we can start to build our nation again. Remember Khartoum institutions let us have foreign currency reserves of at least $5 billion when we became independent in 2011. Within a few years of corruption, nepotism and marginalization and looting we were soon left with no foreigners currency reserves and today we are eating from the money meant for our future generations. According to the IMF South Sudan national debt now stands at 50% of our oil reserves, meaning soon the crude oil we have underground won’t be ours because it would be owned by those who lent us money, money which never benefited the country even. It does not need rocket science to see that indeed the country South Sudan is bleeding towards a natural death and yet many from the clique cannot see it coming. Trying to finish the resources of the country today rather than leaving some for future generations is a crime. In life and humanity. The present generation must always strive to make things better for those coming in the future because they are our offsprings and misusing what should be left for them is an example of bad legacy amounts to trying to wipe your generation and the whole of mankind from planet Earth.
Eng Kisanga is an SPLM political activist and has fought for reform for years and the Government has castrated him to stay at home like house arrest and has been told not to write and the Government will reward him with a job. At any rate jobs are irrelevant because of low pay unless you steal so I have resumed writing to save the nation. Since I am the only one who can tell the truth and what the Government can do to survive and everybody is scared of me, I would like to ask the President to free me from castration and groom me to be his successor. I should be at J1, not at-home. A person everybody (the elites surrounding the President) are scared of should be close to the big man not the ordinary people because the President can work with everybody, even fearsome individuals.
