Poor roads, high petrol prices trouble Juba

By Roba Gibia

February 11, 2009 (JUBA) – Though the face of Juba has started to
change, with zinc houses slowly replacing grass ones, paving the
streets of Juba has come to standstill having barely begun, and the
red dusty roads, still lined mainly with grass houses, are bumpy and
filled with holes.

The paving came to a halt because the foreign company contracted for
the project was an imaginary company without capacity and enough
equipments to execute the project, visitors to the town are told.

Allegedly the company secured its contract in advance even prior to
the commencement of the work, simply because some government officials
were involved in the deal. Besides that there were no South Sudanese
engineers to supervise the construction work, no commitment to project
lead time, and no one investigated what has happened to the allocated
funds.

Although Juba which is supposed to be the seat of the Government of
Southern Sudan, the unpaved streets have got lots of deep holes and
are bumpy, and while driving within Juba, passengers even in very
luxurious and expensive vehicles and land cruisers are dancing and
bumping all the time. And due to the great number of vehicles, Juba
has become a dusty town, and one will never imagine that you are
walking within the seat of South Sudan Government.

It is incredible that the GoSS President takes these very same bumpy
streets to get to St. Thereza Cathedral at Kator, where he usually
prays. When I landed in Juba, I went around Kator, Malakia, Atalabara,
Konyokonyo and Juba bridge to see as what kind of street our President
is using to the church. To my dismay, it is the same bumpy streets
with deep and large holes. At this juncture, I asked my driver as to
whether our President actually feels, dances and bangs as we do now
while driving every Sunday for prayers to Kator?

Another issue in Juba town is the petrol stations, which have been
permitted to be built like shops close to each other. Petrol stations
are a profitable business in Juba and South Sudan, simply because the
south is a free market and GoSS has no hand in fixing fuel price in
south. There is no unified fuel price in south and the owners
themselves choose the prices. At Imatong station, gasoline is sold at
SDG 3.00/litre (USD 1.40), at Hass it is sold at SDG 3.50/litre (USD
1.60), and in Lui it is SDG 5.00/litre (USD 2.30), while in Mundri the
price is lower.

In the past, Ugandans used to import oil and then sell it in South at
a more expensive price, particularly during Kenya’s election crisis,
which raised the fuel prices in Juba. Now the traders are bringing
fuel from Khartoum, which reduced the fuel price in the South.

Most of Sudan’s oil is extracted in South Sudan, which receives only
part of the revenues. According to the UN Secretary-General’s most
recent report on Sudan, arrears on oil revenues to the Government of
Southern Sudan had increased to $286.83 million by the end of November
2008.

The funds are supposed to be for the development of infrastructure and
services in South Sudan, but people in South Sudan and Juba lack basic
services. Hospitals are in bad shape and without medicines and dues of
nurses and civil servants are not paid for several months at a time,
particularly for servicemen and women. Juba has changed a lot in terms
of expansion beyond Jebel Kujuru, Munuki and Gudule, but the old
schools such as Juba One Girls and Boys Primary schools for instance
remain in miserable shape and are hardly recognizable as schools, to
mention only a few. No one knows whose responsibility it is to
renovate these schools.

Many Jubans in the civil service complain about the failure to issue
their salaries. Most registered companies in Juba have got no offices,
only mobile offices and yet some do acquire government tenders for
supplies after which they deliver poor services. In most cases the
contractor ends up without fulfilling the assigned deal because the
money is being released to the contracted company in advance.

(ST)