GOSS must confront South’s tomorrow with faith
By Daniel A. Jook
January 1, 2011 — The fate of South Sudan’s future prosperity remains a major concern for every Southern citizen with impeccable patriotism in all aspects of struggle to its realisation. Numerous writers have been reporting mixed opinion regarding the performance of the Southern Government right away from day one of its inception in October 2005 to date. Yet little progress surfaced so far on the side of government pertaining development in all categories and some pragmatic idealists pose reasonable rhetorical questions whether the Government has always conducted retrospective self-justification or not. Yes, there is a lot which have been achieved by our government that reflects its strengths as inexperience government, but still there remain few areas of essential need whereby the government has been expected to have done better than it did within five and half years of Southern Government. Fellow country men, allow me to highlight few areas I think our government might have done little for its civil society and I will do that in comparison to the first cabinet in similar African countries whereby I picked Kenya as a formidable case scenario.
One might have revisited Kenyan history back to when her first cabinet was formed under the President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1964 after the British colonisation was brought to an end by Kenyan freedom fighters under Mau Mau Movement. That government so much like our government in South Sudan under the President Salva Kiir Mayaar-dit was faced with trio-major challenges of inexperience in government, poverty and high illiteracy among the top list. However, the Kenyan cabinet confronted their tomorrow which is today’s Kenya with faith through humility and positive response by the cabinet ministers when they addressed the above challenges with patriotism and loyalty to civil society they loved most. They turned blind eyes to wealth accumulation and keenly focused on developing their country through transparency and education with the aim of eradicating poverty and illiteracy that prevailed amongst the Kenyan populace at that time. However, their past spirit of honesty and hard work was then thwarted by the successive government of Daniel Arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki who latter deep rooted seeds of corruption and nepotism against Kenyan citizens and forgot continuation with advancement of Kenya’s prosperity laid by much admired leader Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his first cabinet.
More less, the Government of South Sudan have done much like Kenyan government of that time as it is similarly faced with unbearable challenges of inexperience in government before, poverty, and high illiteracy, but there are few blind spots that our government chose not to see that remain visible to the full view of every commentator. Most of Government of South Sudan’s cabinet ministers with the army top brasses focus mainly on wealth accumulation and openly chose to turn blind eyes on development as the civil society is left ailing from poor health care, lack of social welfare, poor infrastructure, poor and few education facilities and no running drinking water in most major towns if not all just to narrow down the list. Factually, the executives have been and continue to concentrate on sophisticating themselves with public funds in expense of poor citizens, by leading lives not even dreamt of in the west where development has reached its peak few centuries ago. Fellow country men, I guess the executives should have reviewed their achievements and failures at this stage whether with pride or doom after they spent five and half years of interim period as prime managers of the Southern government.
Commonly, there are three dominant models of leadership across the world called pragmatic, idealism and pragmatic idealism. The pragmatic idealist leaders are rare birds in the sky but at the same time believed to be the one that lead with distinction because they set clear programs that lead to realisation of perceived vision. The pragmatic leadership style dwells much on practicality of the program without clear charted vision to be realised. Yet another idealist leadership style gets a very steadfast vision but lacks practicality which also fails credential of that leadership style in attaining its goals. However, the combination of the two which is rare to experience world wide is the best though such leaders are few in our planet. Post referendum southern Sudan needs pragmatic idealist leader that would dwell much on clear goals with well stated strategies to attain them as highly expected by the citizens.
What I would like to direct intended audiences into is that our government lacks vision which I believe places it either under pragmatic or idealist leadership style and this always results into unpopular government as frequently pointed out by commentators for the last six years we spent in charge of our Southern affairs. This is also evidenced by the fact that our government have set up South Sudan Anti-corruption Commission that has not even tried a single case since its formation. Not only is this commission too expensive to maintain by the likes of the government of South Sudan, but it also has its credentials dwindled by lack of the tribunal that can try those found corrupt after investigation with charges laid upon them. How can one form a body that has no end result by the end of the day? How many cases did the South Sudan Anti-Corruption Commission try since it came to being? And which court tried them if it happened? God knows! To prove the effectiveness of pragmatic idealist leadership in the above scenario is that Anti-Corruption Commission should not have been formed if the Government of South Sudan knows very well that the investigated suspects are not being tried at last. The aim of investigation here is to try charged persons and if found guilty, they get convicted according to the Act stipulated by the relevant Tribunal with every single cent they embezzled returned to the government. If such steps are not followed and suspects are just set free unpunished then, this could be waste of public funds for the commission that is formed in the first place and our government should have quickly reversed this decision after it realised that no single suspect has been tried in 3 to 4years so far.
As we approach the creation of the new independent state in less than a week time, our government in Juba needs to be reminded that the manner South Sudan has been led in six years of interim period created agony in the hearts of poor southerners who expected their government to have improved their lives so far. My message from the above scenario is that the leadership of South Sudan government or whatever name it might be called after referendum needs to be under the pragmatic idealist leadership style so that the new state should develop rapidly with clear vision. I am hereby challenging the cabinet as the policy making body in the South to do better than they have done in the past six years so that poverty and illiteracy are eradicated amongst the civil population within the shortest period of time possible.
Our civil population has suffered long enough during the successive wars in which they offered every thing they owned in form of human lives and material and should not be allowed to continue experiencing poor services under the government they trusted to have liberated them from the yoke of oppressors who exploited the state of every thing it produces. The southern population needs no cash from government but just basic needs such as health, education, infrastructure, running water, electricity, development and many more needs. Please southern cabinet, southerners need you to walk extra mile in developing the young nation for your recognition as legitimate government otherwise, there will be no distinct different between Southern government run by southerners and Khartoum government that ever treated junubiin as slaves if the civil population remains starving with poverty under your sole management as witnessed in six years of interim period.
The author is residing in Sydney Australia, he is reachable through: [email protected]