South Sudan needs strong leadership

Jacob K. Lupai*

April 21, 2007 — Roughly it is now about 830 days since the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) and about 650 days since the government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) was installed. The tortuous peace negotiations and the subsequent signing of the CPA had tremendously raised people’s hopes and expectations. Tragically Southern Sudan was thrown into utter agony and confusion when its charismatic leader was mysteriously killed in what appeared to be an assassination to deprive the South and other marginalised areas of a vocal voice of democracy, equality and justice at the crucial time during the decisive phase of marching forward with confidence. However, as seasoned fighters Southerners responded with utmost composure as evidenced by the smooth transfer of power.

The new leader Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit installed as Vice President of Sudan and the President of the GOSS, Chairmen and Commander-in-Chief of the SPLM/A reassured the nation and people of Southern Sudan that the CPA would be implemented to the letter. This was music to the ears of the grieving people of Southern Sudan. Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit embarked on the formation of the GOSS and state governments to provide the needed services that had been denied for too long to the people of Southern Sudan. The formation of the GOSS and the state governments was a success and a credit to Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit for the effort in showing the world that Southern Sudan could govern itself without any fuss.

With the formation of the GOSS and the state governments expectations for the badly needed services were no doubt very high, understandably so in a region that was subjected to one of the most brutal forms of underdevelopment for centuries. Even the racist and apartheid South Africans made South Africa the envy of Black Africa in terms of development. The black President of South African, Tebu Mbeki has inherited a nation highly developed by world standards. In contrast the President of the GOSS Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit has inherited nothing but a derelict Southern Sudan characteristic of an abandoned zoo. However, the CPA and, the formation of the GOSS and the state governments showed that all was not doom and gloom. There was hope that Southern Sudan, hungry for development, would have a blue print that could enable the scenes of derelict houses, disgraceful sanitation system, appalling road conditions of roads, the lack of power and the lack of clean drinking water, to give a few examples, would be a thing of the past.

To be fair it would not be possible for the development of infrastructures to be achieved in such a short time the GOSS has been in power. Planning and resources were needed. However, in the 22 years war the SPLM had formed the various executive secretariats some of which were the financial and economic planning, agricultural and animal resources, and rural development and cooperatives secretariats charged most probably with economic development of Southern Sudan. What was precisely the work of those secretariats if not to produce the economic development blue print that could have been broadly discussed and adopted? The seemingly GOSS absence of a clear direction of where to start in terms of development appears to be the major cause of delay in providing the needed services to the frustration of the people of Southern Sudan. Two years is a long time for something not to happen. The GOSS seems to be keeping its blue print either in a locker or doesn’t have one. If it has one then it must be treasured for propaganda purposes. However, people, for example, need clean drinking water now.

In visiting Juba hospital it was another distressing scene. What was seen was a series of patch work being undertaken by what appeared to be cowboy builders, those who may con old people in their homes that they are professional builders. Patients where lying on the corridor near the main laboratory. It was a scene one wouldn’t expect to see where the seat of the government was. One may wonder whether the Juba hospital buildings are listed that they cannot be pulled down to be replaced by modern buildings. The Juba hospital was probably planned for a population less than the current Juba population. This is just one example of what seems to be the GOSS poor planning and performance. Probably the amount of money spent on the patch work called maintenance in Juba hospital could have been spent on a modern structure of a standard expected of a hospital in this electronic age.

The state of agriculture is a scandal. Agriculture is the backbone of the economy of Southern Sudan yet it is starved of resources that most food comes from across the borders. We are told of distribution of improved seeds to the farmers and we know most food crops grow between 90 and 180 days when they are harvested. The GOSS is now about 650 days in office but we are yet to see the first harvest of Southern Sudanese farmers to ease dependence on foreign imports so that the money spent on foreign food imports is invested within. The extension services to the farmers in order to achieve household food security are another miserable story to tell. What is said of agricultural development in Southern Sudan is mostly propaganda because people wanted to be seen as active. However, the consumers know better. We are consuming fresh fish from across the borders while the South has abundant fishery resources. Eggs, banana, vegetables, groundnuts, clean drinking water for those suspicious of the quality of water in Juba and even charcoal are from across the borders. Virtually all food requirements for the inhabitants of Juba are satisfied through imports. Am I against trade with the neighbouring countries? My answer is a big no. What I want to see is what can be produced locally should be produced and let’s import what we cannot produce. People seem to be fed up with stories loaded with future tenses. People want the use of present tenses.

The implementation of the CPA would have given people something to celebrate. However, it is not clear whether the ordinary men and women in the street in Southern Sudan care any more about the CPA. To be fair the tremendous contribution of the CPA is the visible absence of the Sudan Armed Forces soldiers intimidating, harassing and murdering innocent civilians as it had occurred during the war period. However, people do not live by peace alone. There is more to life than mere peace. The President of the GOSS Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit claimed that in the implementation of the CPA they have made considerable progress. However, by his own admission the President said there are problems such as the Abei protocol, the North/South borders demarcation, the management of the oil sector and the other armed groups posing insecurity in Southern Sudan. Also, the Sudan Armed Forces are overstaying in Southern Sudan which may be posing a threat to the security of the South. These are some of the issues at the heart of the implementation of the CPA for the prosperity of the people of Southern Sudan but yet the President is claiming that considerable progress has been made in the implementation of the CPA. What has the President to offer specifically as a considerable progress in the implementation of the CPA. If there were really considerable progress in the implementation of the CPA people shouldn’t have been complaining so bitterly and loudly. The President may say millions of oil money is now pouring into the South but hasn’t corruption eaten away the money that public services are in tatters? The President may be playing politics but to the ordinary people politics may not be the priority.

With all the evidence of poor implementation of the CPA one thing the President of the GOSS has done and highly commendable is his recent approach of leading from the front. There is no way the CPA will be implemented to the letter by leading from the behind. There is no way corruption and nepotism in both the GOSS and the state governments will be adequately addressed by leading from the behind. A region such as Southern Sudan that has not known a culture of peace and good governance for a considerable time but a culture of war and warlords will need decisiveness and an iron fist to stir the South clear of anarchy and despair. When the President of the GOSS took the President of the Republic to task by announcing in public the National Congress Party (NCP) despicable behaviour in the implementation of the CPA the message was clear that things would never be the same again. The revelation of the 60 million dollars allegedly given to the SPLM was a panicky reaction by the President of the Republic as he was caught off guard which meant the scenario changed the course of events. This wouldn’t have happened if the President of the GOSS had just sat there waiting probably for the IGAD, which is unlikely, to intervene on behalf of the South without taking the initiative to reduce the President of the Republic to a sort of a screaming child. One would say this was leading from the front. Before that incident one would say the South was like a ship without a rudder until that explosive day. Fortunately the President of the Republic didn’t do anything silly but only panicked. The culture of subordination in the Sudan seems to be very strong that what the President of the GOSS did on that historic day sent some nerve wrecking waves through the President of the Republic.

The President of the GOSS led from the front when he stood up to the bullying tactics of the NCP. The NCP had refused to let in the UN forces to Darfur but the President of the GOSS leading from the front spoke precisely what a leader should do. The President of the GOSS deserves loud applause. It is now the NCP that has made a U-turn to come to terms with what the President of the GOSS had said all along about the UN forces to Darfur. The President of the GOSS led from the front when he suspended his minister of finance and also barred him from fleeing to Khartoum. In fact the minister shouldn’t have been suspended but sacked a long time ago when there were conflicting reports of the release of money to the GOSS but the GOSS denied receiving the money only to be discovered that the minister indeed received the money. Probably nepotism played a key role as some of the minister’s kinsmen might have tried to use their positions to protect the minister from dismissal.

There is no way the CPA will be implemented to the letter and there is no way the referendum will take place if the President of the GOSS and the state governors do not lead from the front. It will be utterly naïve to think that the NCP will implement the CPA because it is written so. It will also be utterly naïve to think that others will develop the South for the people of Southern Sudan. In my previous article, the World Bank involvement in Southern Sudan: an asset or liability, I was very critical because I saw the deliberate underdevelopment of Southern Sudan in the making under the very noses of the GOSS. Probably the charming corrupt practices of the World Bank mesmerised some Southerners to partake in the underdevelopment of Southern Sudan. However, the fact that the President of the GOSS is pioneering the fight against corruption there is cause for optimism. We do not need to limit ourselves to fighting corruption from within but also the corruption from without which may be the most destructive. For example for the World Bank to withhold development funds earmarked for Southern Sudan is in itself an indication of blackmailing and corruption.

According to a discussion in Aljazeera English news service the World Bank is seen as corrupt and blackmail developing countries to comply with its major shareholders policies. The World Bank is seen as corrupt in the way it bribes developing countries to award contracts to corporations from the countries that are the major shareholders. It dictates salary cuts across the developing world yet the World Bank increases the salaries of its staff and worse the World Bank president indicative of the bank’s corrupt practices awarded a pay of about 200,000 US$ to his girlfriend who is interestingly an Iranian given the present climate of strained relations between Tehran and the USA. The World Bank president is a US citizen, a member of the Republican Party who had served in a number of positions in the US administration and the nominee of the USA President for the job of the president of the World Bank. The corruption by the World Bank president should be seen as the tip of iceberg of corruption in the World Bank and this should be a clear message to those poor countries like Liberia which support the World Bank without reservations.

To be fair what the president of the World Bank has done in relation to his Iranian girlfriend may not be unique. In Africa we may find that leaders may be very corrupt too. Some may nominate their wives for ministerial positions and their father-in-laws for members of parliament. Girlfriends may even be nominated as ministers. A minister may nominate the son of his girlfriend to be an ambassador leaving career diplomats and those trained to be diplomats in the cold. Nonetheless the scandal in the World Bank should be an eye opener for those who may adore the World Bank as the solution to the ills of development in the poor regions of the world. The World Bank is no different from a corrupt developing country. According to the discussion in Ajazeera English news service the World Bank acerbates poverty in the developing countries. Korea and Ecuador are said to be assertive that they do not toe the corrupt conditions of the World Bank and so do not suffer the way other submissive developing counties suffer from the World Bank corrupt practices.

What one would call the missing link is the GOSS apparent lack of a policy towards the Diasporas. The agents of the corrupt World Bank will always sing the song like other exploitative groups that Southern Sudan lacks manpower. The aim may be to flood the South with inexperienced adventurers only to gain experience to become experts in development in order to enjoy the astronomical salaries the World Bank reserves for the expatriates of its choice to under develop the countries that unfortunately take the World Bank’s loans. It is a pitty that the SPLM and the GOSS seem to have no written policy of engaging the Diasporas in the development of the South except some haphazard lip service for the media. It may also be fair to say that the GOSS may not have a database of skills in the Diaspora. One may hear from the SPLM or the GOSS such clauses, “come home” and “we need you” and that is the end of the story. Individuals may travel to the South on their own but the guarantee of getting a job is doubtful. Some people couldn’t have their employment processed as expected and without a salary how could one survive. The GOSS foreign missions should at least compile a list of Diasporas in the respective countries for the GOSS to have a pool of manpower that could be effectively utilized in the development of Southern Sudan.

There is no written policy to tap the talents in the Diaspora. Dr John Garang de Mabior was trying to work something out like mortgages and scholarships for the Diasporas in the effort to tap the talents in the Diaspora but the cruel and the untimely death rob the South of a visionary. If there is a written policy it may be implemented through nepotism where relatives higher up in the GOSS may ask their relatives or next of kins to come down and get jobs. This does not of course promote the kind of southern unity for which the President of the GOSS is asking people. Obviously all shouldn’t be left to the President of the GOSS alone. All sections of government should be robust in fighting corruption and nepotism in all shapes and colours. The bottom line is greed that needs to be addressed.

There are Southern Sudanese in the Diaspora who own registered companies and charities and have access to internationally credible companies that can efficiently implement projects and deliver the needed services. However, the GOSS seems to ignore these readily available resources. For quality products, and the reliability and efficiency of delivery of services people must be ready to pay. However, the problem with poor people is that they worry much about money but not the value for money because the poor would like to have the money themselves hence public services may suffer. This may be one of the main problems in Southern Sudan. The system of handpicking companies is not the way to develop Southern Sudan. A system should be in place to receive biddings from other companies so that an informed judgement is made in selecting the company that will efficiently deliver quality services to the people. The failure of public services in Juba could be attributed to the poor system of handpicking a company only for the company to play games knowing very well that it is the only company around on which people rely.

It is said seeing is believing and people may want to see tangible results to have confidence. Words of mouth may not fill the belly of a hungry man.

*The author is an agricultural extension expert and a researcher on household food security with focus on smallholder agriculture. He can be reached at [email protected]