From where did corruption come?

By Dr Justin Ambago Ramba

March 10, 2008 — Corruption in south Sudan is deeply embedded in the blood of he perpetuators and it goes back to the way the social structure of most of the southern tribes is formed. It is the legitimate child of the high dependency ratio plus the very hostile attitude southerners have developed against government and public funds , which unfortunately they find extremely difficult to part with when even they become a part of the system but even on the top of the government machinery. Southerners have always looked at governments as alien institutions which have to be resisted and fought because those governments in the past represented the interest of the oppressors (the Arabs). Back in the 1960’s school children have always had problems with their teachers who were predominantly Arabs from the North and that was the start of the disrespect to the school administration and the government authorities in line with the struggle for freedom. School children were almost always in logger heads with their teachers and indeed it was as if the real war was being fought in the class rooms with the Arab teachers on one side and the southern students on the other, nothing at all represents a teacher/pupil relationship which normally existed in those schools prior to 1965.

School properties were generally treated as government properties and in other wards they belonged to the enemy. It was a common practice for boarding school students to take away school chairs, beds, desks and all kinds of valuable staff whenever they have the opportunity to do so. This was how corruption crept into the minds of this young people. It was also a common practice for students to bring in their relatives to have meals in the school dinning halls but at times students’ relatives were even accommodated in the school dormitories for indefinate periods and were entitled to all the privileges.

As there were only few schools by then, most students had to travel to far places, away from their homes to attend schools. The policy was that, students were always given transportations to and fro. This was very much abused as well. Many students would register to travel to far towns in the North something encouraged by the government with the hope of encouraging speedy assimilation, but in fact the students were more interested in the travelling allowances than any and at the end of the day they would sell the steamer warrants or whatsoever tickets that were issued to them and not travel at all or rather go to their home towns.

During the school holidays when students travel to rural towns, they were always well received and to distract them from joining the Anyanya Movement, jobs were always made available to them by the Rural or Town councils wherever they go. At times students were also give bursaries by the councils based on special letters issued by the school administrations on the directives of the Education Office authorities. It was in this bit that the real hidden colours of the students would surface. Some would come up with dozens of ghost names which they would register as students and cash the money, worse still are those who dearly love their relatives and they would more than readily invite them into the loot. It was chaos, but the Arabs wanted one thing, they wanted the students to stay within the government controlled garrison towns and they know that it would only come at a cost. Indeed it did work.

Then, came the Addis Ababa Agreement. It was in this era that southerners institutionalized corruption and it was openly adapted as an open manifesto. It all begun with the recruitment of the Anyanya Fighter into the Sudanese regular forces. This process was carried out on tribal merits and no any definitions. So, there were tribes whose fighters were mere illiterate villagers whom if recruited would end up as juniors due to their lack of education. But as recruitment started far away from the heart of the Anyanya Movement, the tribes with less educated fighters called many of their boys who were in schools and never ever fought in the ranks of the Anyanya and these people were recruited as the first Anyanya officers before even Ali Gbatala was considered for any job. This was corruption right from day one of the Addis Ababa , of course with the government representative at the talks as the president of the first Anyanya cabinet whom he didn’t represent at the talks and nor was he neutral at those talks in his capacity as the head of the Nimeiri Envoy to the negotiations. The seeds of institutionalized corruption were sown.

The ministers were in a way appointed on ethnic quotas and it was a common place to know the minister’s ethnicity if you know where his watchman comes from, they were always identical. Ministers on the other hand were catering for entire clans as a way of maintaining loyalty amongst their kinsmen. In some few well known ethnic groups, governments’ top officials including the ministers, usually accommodated dozens of other families within the compound allocated to them in the government residents. Some of these dependants constructed for themselves grass thatched houses within the compounds, while others occupy the servants quarters. The whole thing looked like a summer camping. But here comes the issue of feeding and maintaining this tribal camp and it all rests on the neck of the BIGMAN. He employs some as whatsoever within his ministry or department and adds the rest of the names to the ministries’ pay lists for monthly salaries. Some were students, other disabled people and aged relatives with their wives, children and additional ghost names. These senior government figures still looked at the public funds as an enemy fund though they were now the heads of those government units. Is this because they have been left in the cold for so long that even after been allowed into the warm room they still failed to appreciated its warmth or were these institutions themselves built on corruption such that whosoever gets on the top just find themselves following a set up system of instutionalized corruption ?

Polygamy also surfaced up with full force as southern ministers started enjoying the fruits of the Addis Ababa Agreement and so many first wives were abandoned for new brides, usually better educated primary school teachers from the urban neighbourhoods, as their predecessor were either completely illiterate women from the villages or cattle camps or old fashioned ones who did not follow the vogue of makeup’s and the by then mini-skirts. This new trend was in the celebration every weekend at the Juba Hotel and it went on and on, the African chief style. With new in-laws, the dependency ratio even got higher and new ghost names had to appear on the pay lists plus new grass thatched houses in the government residential compounds to accommodate the new arrivals. What a generosity? It was indeed the generosity of the public funds. As every weekend witness a marriage party, the big towns and Juba in particular was thrown into a spree celebrations and dancing mania. The ministers had also discovered for the first time their strong ego for the Rumba, Soukous and the High Life music to the extend that on one such evening a one time minister of Health who was that evening acting as well as the minister of Education had to pass a ministerial degree in the middle of the night asking all the girls in a boarding school to be brought to one of those elites only dancing parties because they were running short of women to dance with.

Another (Mr R.M) Chief of the southern police did not waste time when it came to the recruitment of the police forces and in the broad day light this corruption addict staffed all the police forces with recruits from his own kinsmen and close relatives. He did not stop there at all, and the madness went to include turning his entire household into police officers, while he spends the whole night gambling in the Greek Club, though gambling was punishable by law. It seemed all the top persons were out to break whatsoever law was there. A one time minister of Youth and Sports was also known for his sexual scandals including the use of the government office for indecent behaviours. A late finance minister in the High Executive Council had a special designer golden wrist watch with his name inscribed in it. Mr Speaker of the then Southern Assembly , was on tour to Iraq and came back with some money donated to the southern government and he just deposited the whole lot into his personal account until the whole scandal was exposed in “Al Hawadis Al Beirutia”, a monthly Arabic Magazine which sent the Regional Assembly wild at the time. Mr L.R a former director general of Education and later a speaker of the Assembly ended with the Tekma Affairs of the 1970’s….. a very famous scandal with its roots up to the President of the Provisional High Executive Council (Mr AAK). Corruption was to the maximum most of the time and public funds were really looted, embezzled, misappropriated and openly taken away illegally without the culprits being questioned at all.

Now for the dirty politicians to cover up their loots, they resorted to the most lethal weapon “ divide and rule” and as secondary school students were the only pressure groups who had on many occasion questioned the legacy of this corrupt politician, their unity was immediately targeted and crippled ones and for all. Inter ethnic school fights were introduced by the people in authorities and these nasty power hungry lunatics knew exactly what it means if they can eliminate the students voices. Because of the recurrent school fights, Student Unions were abolished or in other situation all together banned by the notorious SSU gangs. This vacuum kept the students apart thus creating an idea environment for rumours to be generated ad circulated efficiently, and it did work by sowing the permanent seeds of mistrust amongst the expected future leaders of the south.

When corruption reached its peak in the 1980s, Kokora was decreed in response to a wider demand by those who wanted a change in the status quo. South Sudan became three regions ruled by three governors who run their regions completely separately. Each region had a co-ordination office in Khartoum, the national capital of the Sudan. These co-ordination offices were meant to co-ordinate the regions with the central government, but unfortunately they became the highest institution of mass corruption and embezzlements in the entire country. The coordination offices became the new centres for nepotism, favouritism, and misappropriation of funds. Again here he public funds were treated like enemy funds, and all the abuses went an unaccountable for just as what used to be the case in the south. Then came the second civil war and the south was virtually cut off, a good thing for the coordination gangs of corruption as everything for the south is now decided in Khartoum rather than in the south. The mafia was established with the help of northern experts and it started to function right from inside the southern Sudan coordination offices in Khartoum. They sell all kinds of documents, scholarships, properties and even human flesh. Quotas of essential commodities remained to be approved when the central government knew very well that there was no any means of transporting them to the south. These quotas were of course approved to people in return for favours of all kinds even prostitution included. Everything was sold and bought within the North and the furthest trip would normally not go beyond the towns of Kosti or El Obeid. Fellow south Sudanese who get the approvals end up selling them to the northern merchants who would divert these commodities to other markets in the north. . This process left the fat cats of the coordination offices drowned in illegal wealth and the viscous circle of embezzlement, polygamy, poverty, corruption was set into play again using the public funds , still looked at as the enemy’s fund.

The above went on in Khartoum for quite a long time and it was once said that when Saddig El Mahdi came to power for the second time, he had difficulty announcing his cabinet as he was looking for knew south Sudanese faces to include in his government, but unfortunately all those whom he approached turned down the offer in favour of just being allocated quotas, funny though. This changed under the N.I.F and quotas became things of the past as the NIF government itself took over what used to be gang work, obviously because they were the black market gang masters before coming to power. Now if you want to continue in the game you have to play it according to the new rules which obviously request your loyalty to the NIF, and as a south Sudanese the saying goes that you also have to have a NIF seal stamped between your buttocks. This is said to be a prerequisite even for political posts and any other favours with the system, something more or less like a NIF Master Card or so. All addicted and corrupt southern politician saw nothing bad about that and many were seen in and out in the semi-annual cabinet reshuffles. It is once stamped, always stamped. Because of greed and lack of clear political agendas ,many southern politician had to convert to the ruling party’s religion, though non did it willingly as they were all victims of set ups. A prominent military general and son of a prominent Anglican priest was set up in a financial scandal when he was a state governor and he ended up visiting Mecca on a compulsory pilgrimage which obviously was to humiliate him and destroy his pride and prestige more than any thing to do with going to heaven. Another southern minister in one of the Northern States also converted to the NIF religion after been set up with a woman. To escape punishment for adultery (hundred or so lashes in the public square) as he was already married to two or so wives, an event which forced him into an unplanned marriage and a total disruption of his previous marriages, not to mention the other social embracement. These were yet different forms of corruption carried out by southern politicians which under the NIF administration subjected them to non conventional forms of punishment with long lasting psychological scars so as to say the least.

There was also the case of a southern Sudanese Anglican priest who went to become a politician and eventually a minister in the foreign ministry. This priest was indeed a threat to the very existence of the Anglican Church, and though his actions were not approved by the church, none of the members ever dared to challenge him as that would have meant a direct confrontation with the NIF security elements that were by then on the rampage. The church kept quite and the priest in question promoted himself to a Cardinal, I guess in line with the way the military junior officers always promote themselves to generals after successfully staging a coup de tat. In the chaotic situation which followed, the Anglican Church lost buildings and other properties which were widely believed to have been tampered with by the self appointed Cardinal. These were just the tips of the ice burgs, but beneath the surface all kinds of ugly events were taking place. Ministers were acquiring wealth from the budgets handed to them for running ghost states, as those states were actually under the SPLA, and their appetites for the public funds grew sharper and sharper. Yet they were looting the public funds which they still consider to be the enemy’s funds.

At a certain stage came in the SPLA/M break away factions with their agendas of the Khartoum Peace Treaty. They were given posts both in the Central government and at the regional levels. They did exactly like their predecessor’s f not worse. The same ethnic domination of government posts by the dominant ethnic group and rampant corruption was practise practised by politicians and Para- militaries alike. The public money was tactically used by the NIF at this point and most of the politician and their military personnel were again drowned in a sea of easy come money which was actually meant for political bribery in line with the six million dollars claimed to have been paid to the two PhD engineers who represented the different groups of the SPLA/M break away wings. While on the other side of the curtain the SPLA/M man stream was equally busy milking the entire charity organisations set up in the liberated areas. On many occasion the SPLM big shots holding the chair positions would just send away as many thousands of dollars from these charities to maintain their families in Australia , Britain, U.S.A and South Africa. Yet another embezzlement of public funds which the freedom- fighter thinks he rightly deserves to steal without being questioned as to him it represent part of the wider struggle for freedom.

Sometimes back a prominent south Sudanese and an SPLM inner circle member was spotted carrying huge sums of dollars in one of the International Airports. This lady survived all this until she became a minister in the first SPLM lead government. She continues to command much respect amongst the SPLM/A, and the issue of these unaccounted for dollars just went under the carpet. It was SPLA/M money, a public fund, yet looted by the very in the highest hierarchy.

Not surprising still was the issue of the sixty million dollars which the President of the Sudan claimed to have handed to the late Dr Garang and the money was meant for preparing the SPLM delegates expected to come to Khartoum during the six months grace period for bilateral negotiations and handover meetings …..etc. As the SPLM committees never turned up and such meetings never took place, the head of state Omer El Bashir raised the issue in Juba in retaliation when the NCP was accused of dragging its feet in the implementation of the CPA by Slva Kiir. The investigations which followed indeed showed to the entire world that Salva Kiir and his crew are actual a bunch of thieves who have a very veracious appetite for public funds ad up to this day no southerner out side the SPLM corrupted inner circle know what has become of this money. Thanks to the CPA or otherwise Omer El Bashir would have had them stamped between their buttocks , converted to NIF religion and sent on a humiliating pilgrimage to Mecca just like all those who did similar things before them.

As Salva Kiir and company Ltd., started from the sixty million dollars lost between Late Dr Garang, Authur Akeui and himself, he went straight into establishing a registered Mafia which are now systematically looting the South. The president of GOSS no longer has any creditability in as far as fighting corruption is concerned and man people have rightly suspected him of even being the God Father of the Family. He is fond of forming toothless committees and when culprits are identified they never appear in the court of law. What Mr President should know is that these courts are created there for purpose and if he is proving to be an obstruction to justice, then one day he will stand before the courts to answer charges on the current corruptions.

In the Unity State, the heartland of the Sudanese Oil industry, all kinds of inappropriate governing is evolving. The Unity State by the virtue of its status is expected to be a rich state and the development which is taking off on tortoise pace in south Sudan is expected to have long reached a level to be appreciated by the citizens there. Unfortunately we are hearing the contrary. The State is suffering from the loads of ghost employees, unqualified public servants, widespread embezzlement of the public funds and a hectic ethnic politics with the latter bringing the vice president of GOSS and the State governor to a face to face confrontation at a certain stage. It is in this oil state that school teacher from Kenya are to be paid in dollars, what an idea? Where have all the Sudanese school leavers gone? We still hear of many south Sudanese who are unemployed, and why don’t take up the teaching posts for even half the pay? In this way you save the dollars and you employ you countrymen, or is it that our national pride has come to mean nothing at this stage in our history? The real intentions behind some of these policies are a bit dubious to understand at the first glance.

South Sudan has a decentralized system of governance, but the philosophy of this very system has not been realised by the people running the scene. The system warrants that citizens stay within their various States in order to carry out the necessary development, rather than everybody cramming up in the capital city thus depriving the states of the most needed man power. Lately it has been reported that some people in authority are behind the relocation of certain tribes into lands far away from their home states with the intention of land occupation, something viewed by the host communities to be a planned strategy approved by the President of GOSS who has all this time kept quite on this rather dangerous issue. Now election will come and go, SPLM will rig the votes and the south will go ablaze the Kenyan way and believe me land issue will be in the heard of the turmoil to follow. The earlier these issues are settled the better. Those who have ears, listen!

Corruption and the looting of the public funds have come with us a long way as you can see it. It has become the core fabric of our society because as we corrupt and steal we make our families feed of this immoral money and so they become passive partners in this vast scandal. We are corrupt by the virtue of our tribal settings where we pay more loyalty to our tribes more than the state, and we easily steal from the nation to give to our tribesmen, kinsmen and our extended families. We do not feel any remorse in the due course, because we look at the public as an enemy and the public fund and properties represents the enemy’s wealth rightfully to be looted. Oh dear! Where are we coming from and where are we going to? What does it signify if we can break into the police custodies and free our tribesmen, though we know that they are behind the bars for crimes against the public by embezzlement of funds or murdering in cold blood? Do you think that we are really anywhere nearer to the civilization which qualifies us for an independent nation in 2011.

At this very moment you are reading this article, there are hundreds of embezzlements of public funds taking place all over south Sudan. Taxation system is vague and crooked, and though taxes are collected at certain points, basically they end up in the pockets of the SPLA commanders and Salva Kiir’s cronies. There is nothing that the president does not know off. The more he knows of any corruption the more he keeps quite, because possibly in every loot he has a kick back, otherwise what on earth can justify his indifference? Others blame his limited education which I think is good for a south Sudanese president otherwise why would we want a professor as a president? All we need is a south Sudanese citizen who has the nation at heart. Salva Kiir unfortunately lacks the basic qualities of even being compared to the Old Days District Commissioners who built and developed the whole of the African Continent under the colonial rule. We may benefit from him at the Abyei Front Line, just think of it?

We all know that soon it will be election time, no wonder politicians of all calibres shall head home to their constituencies to solicit votes by using lawful and unlawful means at equal footing. Some of the looted money shall be seen when the different agents start buying gifts to electorates and the rest, it is a scenario where a
I really pity the poor SPLA fighter who would be for the first time since the signing of the CPA to ever come face to face with his Excellency the
President while on his tour to beg these abandoned fellows to do him a favour by voting him back to power. It is a power that he had not shared with them when he was in office, but the bitter truth is that it is going to be as well a power that he is not going to share with them in any way once he gets re-elected into office, simply because that is the way it is being done in south Sudan and the third world at large. Then if you ask yourself as to why you have to vote for him, your answer would astonishing be a non patriotic one though you would be voting to a fellow freedom fighter, because your comrade is no longer with you in the liberation movement. He has already joined the ruling cliques in Khartoum first, then Juba. His ultimate aim now is to remain in power for the sake of power itself otherwise with the unprecedented record of the GOSS failure in delivering the basic services to the people, none of these faces should really be seen again in the coming governments.

South Sudan deserves to have laws in place and law enforcement agencies of the highest standards so as to reform its different communities which for quite a long time now lived an entirely lawless life. Our freedom needs to be guided by a system which would guarantee a peaceful co – existence between our different communities otherwise very soon there wont be any difference in what is currently taking place in Abyei and Mairam and what will prevail in Nimule and Parajok. There must come a day that south Sudanese would identify themselves as protectors of public properties in our country before we ever dream of any meaningful development. We are all parts of the public and stealing public funds is crime and a sin punishable by both man and God.

The author of this article is a south Sudanese doctor living in UK