By Dr. Henry Jembi,
Sept 06, 2015(Nyamilepedia) —- Cognizant that a Federal system of government is a popular demand of the people of South Sudan and of the need for the TGoNU to reflect this demand by way of devolution of more power and resources to lower levels of government, and to initiate that a federal and democratic system governance that reflects the character of South Sudan and ensures unity in diversity be enacted during the permanent constitution making process; (Page 3). Convinced that the sharing and allocation of wealth emanating from resources in South Sudan
shall ensure that the quality of life and dignity of all citizens is promoted without discrimination on the grounds of gender, religion, political affiliation, ethnicity, and language; (Page 3).
2.1.14. Devolve power and resources to States’ and County levels; (Page 6). CHAPTER IV.
RESOURCE, ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 1. G1.6 (Page 29).
General Principles
1.6. Revenue sharing should reflect a commitment to devolution of power and resources, and the decentralization of decision-making in regard to development, service delivery and governance.
6.2 Wealth Sharing and Revenue Allocation (Page 36). 6.2.4 In line with the agreement on the devolution of more power and resources to the States and Counties, wealth sharing and revenue allocation shall be worked out by TGoNU within three
(3) Months of the commencement of the Transitional Period;
CHAPTER VI.
PARAMETERS OF PERMANENT CONSTITUTION (Page 47).
1.2. Initiate a Federal and democratic system of government that reflects the character of South Sudan in its various institutions taken together, guarantees good governance, constitutionalism, rule of law, human rights, gender equity and affirmative action;
1.4. Promoting people’s participation in the governance of the country through democratic, free and fair Elections and the devolution of power and resources;
1.5. Respecting ethnic and regional diversity and communal rights, including the right of communities to preserve their history, develop their language, promote their culture and expression of their identities;
As you can see and read in the above italic and bold expressions, the federal system is clearly portrayed and depicted in this typical agreement, though it’s not directly stated in all the expressions, but the sense is very clear that the Proposed Compromise Agreement confirmed that the Federal System of governance is needed by the people of South Sudan. The people of South Sudan need peace, stability and development, the only means to achieve that is by bringing peace to them, peace that can last for ages not temporary peace.
The Federal System of governance is not a bad one because we did not try it or experience it before; let’s try it and see whether it is good or bad then we can judge constructively. For those of you who are judged Federalism negatively, on what ground did you base your judgment? How can you judge without practical experience? What you read in the books about Federalism are just ideas, theories and experience of others? Mind you, Rome is built in one year and South Sudan will not be built in ten years, we need many years and ages to build South Sudan.
Nevertheless, the building should not focus on the materials, but on the people of South Sudan instead who never knew rest and stability in their lives at all. History can prove that since the independence of Sudan from the British in 1956, South Sudanese never know-how to rule themselves and never know how to plan for their social, economic and security development. So in order for us to do that, we need a system which can facilitate, advance and streamline our political activities without hindrances, obstacles and questionings as it had been in the past. We should know how to deal with our past experiences and issues as something of the past at this critical moment of the Proposed Compromise Agreement.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 ended the long war between northerners and southerners in the Sudan, and a little success is achieved to the southerners before the referendum, which was the golden chance to the people of South Sudan as we all know very well that they managed to make use of it accurately and rightly.
CPA brought peace to us, Referendum brought independence to us, the system of government and rule in South Sudan after the independence also contributed much though it failed in many areas, mainly on the human rights, nation building, unity building, reconciliation initiatives, corruption, domestic relationship, regional and international relationship too. As a result, the state is called and named a failed state, even by some senior leaders, politicians and pioneers of the same movement and the government of the Republic of South Sudan.
Dogmatically, Federalism is a cardinal issue do you why? Because the majority South Sudanese population wants it for these reasons devolution of more power and resources to lower levels of government, sharing and allocation of wealth emanating from resources in South Sudan shall ensure that the quality of life and dignity of all citizens, devolution of power and resources, and the decentralization of decision-making in regard to development, service delivery and governance, devolution of more power and resources to the States and Counties, wealth sharing and revenue allocation and Promoting people’s participation in the governance of the country through democratic, free and fair Elections and the devolution of power and resources. To develop South Sudan, we need a system that can advance and accelerate the vehicles of progress and widen the scope of understanding and unanimous efforts toward nation building and national call.
Besides, the interest and feeling of the people of South Sudan. Let us not commit the same mistake of the north whereby things are centered focus even the tiny matters and issues are peripherally administered, which a grave political crime at the expense of the people of South Sudan. Avoiding the inequities of the past will build trust between the government and the people, and will guarantee the continuation of the system chosen and liked by the people, and will maintain safety in the running of the domestic affairs and vice verse.
The author can be reached at Email: jembijembi@hotmail.com and Website: http://www.GRECOR.COM.
4 comments
My name is DINGIT NA TUGGÖ. In Bari Language it means only time will explain. I am so happy that the is telling us that FEDERALISM is the only Call of the Peace loving People of South sudan. Those who hate it might start crying right now . ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Some of our South Sudanese lack patriotism, pride and nationalism towards our country. Absence of all of these qualities mean mistrust of one another. That trust needs to be established. If such thing is unachievable, federalism would not work.
Federalism and democracy themselves cannot lead to good governance and best economics development. They work well in western countries if they are combined with other fields of academic professionalism and institutional expertise that create a synergy intended to achieve the desire outcomes.
Most of our South Sudanese are behind in academic literacy and have not experiences in governance and economics management.
Lack of nation’s building inspirational legacies to draw some sort of motivations from have never been passed down to our current generations of South Sudanese by our old and late generations of people, because they were not running South Sudan as a country then.
South Sudan has natural resources that belong to all citizens by definition but because they are not found in all our states as is in the case of crude oil, it becomes clear that there people who need federalism as a ticket to this valuable resource for their own benefits.
In a young inexperienced nation such as South Sudan with no infrastructure and lack of technologies to monitor financial revenues generated from the sales of such resources, there is not doubt that corruption and nepotism can easily find their way under state governments, leaving federal government with no budgets to allocate to the building of the capital city or state Infrastructure.
A good starting point is to build our national pride so that we are singing the same hymns and then build a lot skyscrapers that are not ivory towers in our capital city before we scatter ever pound towards building all our maximum states infrastructure, after agreeing to a need for federalism.
Yes almost all of us Luck patriotism and indeed we mistrust one another especially the mistrust between tribes and this is because of the jengelon who leave behind their grazing land and come to GREATER EQUATORIA just With one motive which we already know. I leave in the west, enjoying full freedom of Democracy but yet not happy when my grandfather’s land is grabbed. This is why you find almost every equatorian is calling for FEDERAL RULE and just let everybody know that this is going to materilized.
Tolio, it is really foolishness to say that we Call FEDERALISM as a ticket to benefit from oil Money. There is no any oil in the Three equatorian states. Just right now, ask any Citizen from these states about oil Money they will answer that they did not benefit from oil money and they do not want it. only what they want is this; the moving away of the jengelon cattle so that they dig their land to produce Food not to produce oil. Yes the oil Money went to jengelon, they built Bor With this Money and they destroy all these buildings………………..what answer can you give to this Madness ya tolio
You talk of nation’s building inspirations Legacy ……..hahahahahah, how do you do this? is it done by force, by rapping, by corruption , by killing, by land grabbing as it is happening right now? No please………………we must do this by trying another system of rule and this is FEDERALISm.
My name is DINGIT NA TUGGÖ, which in Bari means only time will explain. I am not a polotician trying to explain political matters but just time tells us ENOUGH is ENOUGH and do not try to twist federalism around by the way it has been the popular Call of all South sudanese right from 1947.
No need to cry for the time tells us that the reallity must be told and put into practice. FEDERLISM.
Why must these writers tortures these wasteful creatures(Jang) by bringing up a topic that makes their hearts skips a beat or two. Federalism is the last thing Malong and JCE wants to hear or read about. Its the one system that make it hard for any club of gangs to monoplizes powers and that is an absolute nightmare for the so called born to rule(born to loot & run) haha