Leaders: Take good care of your subjects

By Zechariah Manyok Biar

September 20, 2010 — Many people, including myself, look at leaders as parents. Like parents, leaders are responsible for protecting and caring for their subjects. Subjects like children are responsible for honouring and protecting the names of their leaders. Disappointment comes in when one side is playing its part and the other side is not.

Since my coming back to South Sudan, I have been in contact with all kinds of people, both powerful and not powerful. I am impressed by some and I am disappointed by others. I have also disappointed others in my own ways.

Leaders in the higher positions here in South Sudan are caught up in the important matters of the nation, as we draw closer to referenda. They rarely hear what affects common people all over the country.

Common people on the other hand, worry every day on what to put on the table for themselves and their loved ones. Hunger and sickness do not know the importance of the referenda. People are getting sick and hospital bills are becoming a burden on the working few, especially soldiers who do not get paid on time. Members of Legislative Assembly of South Sudan have even noticed this problem in their last week’s debate. But it looks like the debate would remain in the parliamentary building.

I thought I would not write about this problem at this particular time since everybody is working on the most important thing: the referendum. But I have realized that the importance of the referendum is the future happiness of our citizens and the future is often determined by what we do now. We cannot overlook other situations in the name of referendum, especially when these other situations are about the welfare of Southerners. We must take care of everything at the same time. That is what it means to manage a country.

I have two stories to tell. They are the ones that motivated me to write this article. The first story is about the brother of a Major in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) who is diagnosed with liver cancer. The Major is working day and night on the protection of South Sudanese, but his brother is dying unattended to in Khartoum where he has been transferred for “better” treatment. A person who takes him to hospital is a woman who does not speak Arabic and does not know the system where you book before time to see the doctor. A situation that may be resolved is getting worst.

I spoke to the Major today on the phone and he said that he now does not have enough money to fly to Khartoum to attend to his hailing brother. He said that they in the army have not been paid their salaries for quite a long time now. This could be understandable because Khartoum had delayed the transfer of funds to South Sudan three times in recent months. But this is not the first time that the army has gone without pay for long time in South Sudan. Repetition of this practice is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, especially at this time of referenda. If a Major in the army is in the above situation, then what do you think of a Private soldier?

Another story is of a sick soldier who had gone for treatment under official permission from his army leaders. When he came back to get some money for further treatment, he discovered that his local commander had taken and used his salaries. After realizing that he could not get his salary from his commander, the soldier went into some kind of shock and is now in a critical condition.

When I discussed this issue this morning with those who told me the news, many other soldiers present in our discussion confessed that it is now becoming a normal practice for local army commanders to use the money meant for their soldiers on leave for important family issues that the army permit them to attend to. Some soldiers even told me that their money was consumed by their commanders during election campaigns this year, when in fact these soldiers where sent by the same commanders as guards to political contenders.

The story of David with the wife of Uriah in the Bible comes to mind. Why would some leaders take one and only goat of a poor man and slaughter it for their guests when they have more than hundred goats? What happiness do we want our citizens to have if we consume them to death? Is the work of taking care of individual soldiers also a work of the President and the Ministers? Is it not the work of the local commanders who consume poor soldiers’ money, leaving them dying in hospitals unable to pay hospital bills?

Let us be honest to ourselves, we should not be quiet when people who risk their lives for this country are crying like helpless children of uncaring parents. We must speak against this situation and put it right, if we are to defend this country. Everybody must play his/her role in building the nation.

Our top leaders are caught up in making sure that we achieve what took the lives of more than two million people. Leaders at the lower levels in the government must play their part in taking care of our citizens. Soldiers and other organized forces must be paid on time when funds are transferred to South Sudan Government from Khartoum. We must stress that it is a corruption of high standard for a leader to take a penny out of the subject’s entitlement, regardless of whether the subject is present or absent. This kind of corruption must stop.

Zechariah Manyok Biar, BA. Edu. MACM, MSSW. He can be reached at [email protected]