South Sudan, Reshuffles should continue to include other
By Ohiyok D. Oduho
Sepyember 11, 2006 — Some State governments in the South have undergone mini reshuffles. According to press reports early September, the First Vice-President and President of the government of South Sudan (GoSS), Lt-Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, issued decrees firing and appointing Governors in Western Equatoria and Warab States. He also reappointed the State Minister in the Ministry of International Cooperation in the government of National Unity (GoNU) to replace Cdr. Deng Nhial Deng who had resigned as Minister of Regional Cooperation in the GoSS. Two Commissioners and a Minister of Finance were fired and replaced in Eastern State.
These reshuffles are indeed a welcome development because those officials replaced are believed to have either indulged in corrupt practices or are incapable of handling the duties assigned to them. This proves that His Excellency Lt-Gen. Mayardit has been very patient and this patience has given him the opportunity to study the corrupt practices of the officials he reshuffled out of cabinets.
In other words, the list of the corrupt senior government officials in the South is long and continued study with a view to identifying more corrupt officials is necessary. The latest reshuffle is relieving indeed as the South has no money to waste on individuals who are bent on enjoying life but rather on development of the South, its human and natural resources.
The reshuffled should also be a firm reminder to those intellectuals who write in newspapers, saying there is no corruption in South Sudan. Writing to support should be different from writing to pass important information that would encourage and effect change. It does not matter whether or not someone fought, because that fighting had an aim: liberation of the people and not self. Thus, those who write to seek for positions in the GoSS or GoNU on SPLM/A ticket should know that there are other ways of making oneself known to the SPLM/A in order to get a position but should not encourage corruption.
The support that is offered to a person because he/she comes from his/her tribe or section; support offered to an organization because it is run by his/her tribe or section is a backward if not uncivilized attitude and would not advance the Southern Sudan cause for democracy. Those who offer their allegiance for tribe or section within a conventional government system should realize that the government is not a chieftainship run by chiefs. It is a government of the people that has to be checked and balanced by the people through objective criticism in the press so that the attention of their representatives in the legislative assemblies could be drawn; and a democratic process of making the corrupt account for mistakes is set in motion.
South Sudanese at large have fought in various ways for the current freedom now prevailing in the country. Sudanese refugees, for example, have told stories about how they had to leave their homes and what kind of mistreatment they received while at home. This information is repeated in the forms for resettlement of refugees in Western Europe and other parts of the world. Thus the governments of those countries that have accepted South Sudanese have the details of the problems facing South Sudanese at home. This is one of the surest means of information gathering that arms the international community and human rights organizations with facts about Sudan. This is how effective is the fighting of a Sudanese refugee or migrant abroad.
Journalists and intellectuals have, through writing and presentation of papers in seminars workshops and public lectures, given information on the nature of the war in the Sudan, especially the plight of the South Sudanese people. The information they have presented has no borders, meaning everybody would get it. There are those who lived at home who faced the previous regimes and contributed to the struggle for the freedom of South Sudanese. In short, every South Sudanese has, in his/her unique way, contributed to the struggle.
It is, thus, unfortunate to hear some circles insisting that they have physically fought in the bush and must reap the fruits of that fighting without necessarily sharing the reaped fruits with their brothers who fought in other many different ways for the same cause. The struggle did not begin in 1983 as some people might want others to believe.
Reshuffles should continue to include those corrupt governors, ministers and commissioners that are hiding, with hopes that they would not be discovered. Lives have been sacrificed for the freedom that is enjoyed today since 1955. Those sacrifices were made for development of the South, its human and natural resources. As such, few individuals who could easily be replaced for the sake of efficiency by other good-intentioned South Sudanese SPLM/A or from other parties should not be allowed to drain funds that are earmarked for the development of the South, its human and natural resources.
* The author is a columnist at the Sudan Vision Newspaper. He can be reached at [email protected].