Humiliation of GOSS Minister for Regional Cooperation
By Steve Paterno
Feb 7, 2007 — “We have burnt our bridges. We cannot go back, but neither do we want to go back. We are forced to extremes and therefore resolved to proceed to extremes,” wrote Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels in an acknowledgement of Nazi defeats just to prove that reality finally caught up with his successful career on propaganda. In another similar career, the U.S. military tried in the last ditch effort to prolong the career of comically Iraq Information Minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf. The invading Americans troops staged tanks blocks away from the minister’s press conference venue and let the cameras roll to allow the minister to pronounce the last words of his career. The minister wasted no time but convened the press conference by saying, “there are no American infidels in Baghdad.” And he stressed it even further, “Never!” When pressed hard by showing him evidence of video footages of American tanks just blocks away, the minister responded, “I blame Al-Jazeera—they are marketing for the Americans!” The minister then melted away from the scene only to be surfaced in public as a commentator on Abu Dhabi TV. Fascinating careers with interesting ending those gentlemen had. Soon to be added into the list will probably be Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the minister for Regional Cooperation in the government of South Sudan.
As for Minister Benjamin, one will just hope that his career of outright lies, lack of professional ethics, arrogance, ignorance, and terrible sense of humor wane up quickly than later. Rumors are already flaring out that the SPLM party is poising for a major cabinet shake up within the government of South Sudan and within the central government. With the rumors of the shake-up gaining momentum, they say, Lam Akol will be reshuffled, meaning he is not going to be the international spokesperson of the Khartoum ruling regime anymore. The infamous like Telar Deng is said to be replaced. The corrupt like Arthur Akuein who is accused of embezzling million of dollars, is reported to be on his way out from the financial ministry, and hopefully Barnaba Marial Benjamin is among them on his way out for being a liar, supporting unethical professional procedures, and for just being ignorance of his surrounding, which by the way include his ministerial duties.
In his last visit to the U.S., Minister Barnaba Benjamin of Regional Cooperation became the GOSS official face of public humiliations just as Goebbels did during the demise of Nazi and as al-Shahaf did during the fall of Saddam Hussein regime. In a public celebration for signing of the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) organized by SPLM chapters of Washington metropolitan area in Washington, the minister was set on a defensive mode. Such was the tone that the minister was set into until his departure from the U.S. Worse, it was really humiliating and all practiced in public.
In the rally, the minister started by accusing some imaginary audience whom he said opposed the opening of the GOSS liaison office in Washington, D.C. The minister went on quoting the South Sudan interim constitution more than five times in his defense. However, it turned out that no one in the audience opposed the opening of that liaison office. As it was too late for the minister to realize that he was addressing an imaginary audience, he turned on to accuse those whom he said were disgruntled and wished to be employed in the GOSS liaison offices. He later on promised that GOSS liaison offices will be opened all over the world and all will be employed throughout those offices. Well, such promise can only be as good as they are propaganda and lies. Not even that, the truth turned out to be that no one was disgruntled about anything as all were happy to have a liaison office that is effective to cater for South Sudan interest. That was the minister once again targeting on the imaginary audience. You talk of ignorance of your surrounding or audience, and the minister is.
Not satisfy with his public humiliation, the minister went straight to employ lies as if anyone in the audience will buy those lies. As he was pressed on what criteria his ministry has in place in employing officials in the liaison office in Washington, the minister said, all the positions were advertised in Juba, those who applied were screened, and they are all qualified with masters and bachelor degrees. Since the minister instituted himself as a reputable lair, I mean a bad lair, it turn out that there was no advertisement that took place in Juba for any position to fill the liaison office. Instead the advertisement was passed through relatives and friends who included the minister’s brother and the relatives and friends of Ezekiel Gatkouth (the minister’s favorite to head the liaison office). And it was a perjury for the minister to lie that those employed in the D.C. liaison office applied and were screened for their positions, because it was later discovered that those who are employed are approached by Ezekiel Gatkouth to be employed in the office in Washington, D.C. In other words, those individuals were handpicked and were not employed through the due process of employment as the minister lied in the broad daylight, moreover to the public.
As for the assertions of qualifications with masters and bachelor degrees by the minister on behalf of those who were to be employed in the Washington liaison office, it turned out that masters and bachelor degrees can only be obtained from accredit institutions of learning. And some of those individuals to be employed have never been in any of those institutions let alone if they even possess any education credential as the minister misrepresented their educational credential. The conventional wisdom always has it the other way where the employees misrepresent their qualifications to gain favor but in this case it is the minister who is misrepresenting the qualifications of to be employees for reasons only known to the minister. This is “fraud in reverse” a terminology that is probably needed to be added in the legal field.
Since the minister realized that his lies did not bode well with the public, he immediately backtracked and excluded education as a qualification for employment in the ministry of Regional Cooperation. In backtracking, the minister said, the qualification for employment in the ministry of Regional Cooperation is not education but contributions to the movement and struggle. Then the question is, how can we measure such qualifications? Perhaps we should start by measuring the contributions of the minister to the movement and the struggle before we start with those under his ministry. But still, people wonder as one person said that there is no need for doctors to administer in the hospitals since in theory people with more contributions to the movement and the liberation struggle may fill up all the positions in the hospitals before the doctors fill out those positions. No wonder one observer remarked, “the unsightly Juba can make every visitor conclude the city’s health authorities are on holiday.” Could it be that the ministry of health employs the same method of employment as the ministry of Regional Cooperation where education in the field of health is not consider as a prerequisite for employment? It will be good to know and probably correct the system before the health system crumbles.
In an attempt to divert the attention away from the malfunctions in the ministry of Regional Cooperation, the minister desperately tried to defend corruption. The minister said, corruption started way before GOSS, in heaven and spread all over the world. That people should not talk about corruption since it has not started in GOSS. Well, if that is the reasoning for a minister who is also a self-professed freedom fighter, then the minister must be told that marginalization and oppression had been there and is all over the world, therefore, there is no reason to fight over it. It is just pathetic that a minister will entertain such reasoning.
The minister did not end humiliating himself there; he praised the hiking prices of services and goods in Juba city and he attributed that to the progress of GOSS. He announced that Juba became the second expensive city in the world only second to Tokyo. By just hearing that, one will discover major problems with these statements which include ignorance and lies. First, Juba does not feature in any reputable surveys of the expensive cities in the world, and second, Tokyo is not currently featured as the most expensive city in the world. As for the minister celebration of hiking prices in Juba, perhaps a lesson in economics may help the minister. But it comes down to; only in South Sudan a minister can praise hiking prices and misrepresent facts and yet expected to get away with it. One will say, wake up South Sudanese.
The only ways that the minister would have avoided public humiliation on his visit to the U.S., would have been to educate himself on issues that he discussed, stopped lying, understood his audience, and most importantly as he is just newly installed on his ministerial post, promise to correct the system in the ministry to cater effectively for the interest of the South Sudan. However, the minister chose to be ignorant, deceitful, stubborn, and adamant. Anyway, as the examples of those with similar career as his showed, there is hope that the minister will come to the realization of the truth and by then it will be too late for him. Let the reshuffle begin, and let it begin with non other than Barnaba Marial Benjamin, Minister for Regional Cooperation or forever he will be the GOSS face of humiliation in advance countries like the United States of America (U.S.A.) where he will always be bowed. Do they have election down there in South Sudan??? Vote him out or whoever is responsible for keeping him there must be voted out!
* Steve Paterno is a Sudanese residing in the U.S.A., and he can be reached at [email protected]