The problems facing South Sudan

By Mariar Wuoi

March 12, 2011 — As South prepares to be formally invited into the club of sovereign states in July, questions abound as to whether the world is welcoming a nation that will be viable. South is in a unique position to study the pitfalls that have been the undoing of most African countries. It does not have to look far for lessons in real-life history. Many African countries went through a phase where they failed establish a solid foundation for democracy, economic development, and good governance. These should have been the first items to be tackled because they have profound impact on the future direction of the country. Instead, what happened was that the colonial regimes were replaced by authoritarian regimes that allowed the corruption and favoritism to flourish. Institutions decayed and service delivery was not a priority. It also created an environment where businesses could not start or succeed without having the right connections at the highest level of government. In almost all cases, African countries squandered the opportunity to establish viable states within the first decades of achieving independence. Will South be any different?

Each country is different in how it approaches its governance and development agenda. However, all countries are faced with the same problems: How do we create conditions that will reward entrepreneurship? Create jobs for our youth? Reward performance over cronyism? Deter corruption? Educate our population? Providing public goods to our people? Establish foundation for a lasting democracy? Give our children a better country than one we inherited?

These questions and their derivatives are limitless but they serve to guide any country’s long term plans. The solution is uncannily simpler than it looks. Strip all these problems to the very basic and one begins to see that at the heart of it are institutional problems. African countries became too big for their own good. They inherited a system that was designed to keep power in the hands of few colonialists and used it to maintain power. Power was concentrated in the executive branch and legislative and judicial branch ended up serving the means of whoever controlled the executive. This concentration of power is the best recipe for unchecked abuses of power. At the top of the list is corruption and lack of accountability.

Countries such as the United States, for example, at the outset did away with concentration of powers at the top even though they inherited it from the British. Founding fathers intentionally weakened the federal government because unchecked government is not good any country. South would benefit by putting this at the top of its agenda over the next five years. The operating question facing our constitution drafters would be: how do we strengthen the separation of powers and cement checks and balances? Once this is done, office holders will not be beholden to the appointing authority but will instead work to address the problems affecting the people of South Sudan. When the president appoints his people to posts to serve as an extension of his reach, they tend to not put weight on performance but on loyalty. The result is the decay of service delivery and poor performance at the very top. Furthermore, corruption begins to take hold because those appointed – because they are close to the appointing authority – fear no reprisal or reprimand by virtue of their closeness to the top.

The size of the government and its level of reach create a problem where the goal of any party or individual is to assume the control of government at whatever cost. This in turn creates unstable political environment and that is not good for investors. Coups are direct results of exclusion from what is seen as a gold mine of illicit wealth and privilege. If having power was not such a profitable enterprise for the individuals or a section of the society, there would be less incentive to invest and risk so much to achieve it. Only those who have genuine desire for public service would undertake the process of gaining public office. These office holders would instead focus on making their institutions effective at service supply and delivery, and not wealth or privilege.

South Sudan is facing difficult challenges but there is no need to despair. We can create the right institutional foundation and those foundations should make other solutions easy to achieve. At its basic, we have to have a government that is not too big and cumbersome to be able to guide our country. South should borrow a page from America’s founding fathers and settle on credible checks and balances system of government. This will go a long way towards solving the problem of powerful executive branch that is so prevalent in many post-independent Africa. When we have established the right foundation, corruption can be minimized or prevented. Corruption is only possible when you have enablers in powerful positions. These enablers can gut or stall investigation, remove or influence judges to protect the guilty party.

Our country is in a unique position to learn and apply something that has not been applied elsewhere with success in Africa. But it will start with right steps over the next five years.

The writer is a Sudanese residing in the United States. He can be reached at [email protected]. Viewpoints expressed in this article are those of the author.