South Sudan army lauds its ranking among powerful armies in Africa

May 14, 2016 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s army chief on Saturday has welcomed and commended a ranking placing it among the top powerful armies in Africa.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA),, according to Paul Malong Awan, chief of General Staff of SPLA, is the only uniting institution in the country despite several attempts by the politicians to dismantle it.

“We have not do much, given the expectations of our people of what we should do but the little we have done can be recognized, like now others are talking about us as being of one of the powerful armies in Africa, which is true”, said Awan after learning that Global Firepower released a research work which including the SPLA among top powerful armies in Africa.

The Global Firepower ranking measures countries’ military strength and assigns a power index number in order to compare them to other countries. Many factors are taken into consideration: manpower, equipment, geographical location, logistics and finance.

Based on available information, South Sudan is ranked among the top most powerful militaries in Africa as of May 2016, according to the group.

South Sudan is ranked as the eighteenth most powerful military in Africa as its sister country Sudan is ranked 8th, Kenya 11th, and Uganda 16th. According to Global Firepower, South Sudan has an active arms stockpile of 110 battle tanks, 250 armoured fighting vehicles, 25 self-propelled guns, 25 towed artillery, 15 multi-launch rocket system, 9 helicopters and 210,000 active soldiers.

South Sudan military budget stands at $ 545,000,000 making it the second highest military budget in East Africa after Kenya recently increased its military spending to $ 595,000,000.

Egypt, which receives billions of dollars in US military aid, tops the list of Africa’s fearsome armies, followed by Algeria, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa in that order.

(ST)