At the Mercy of the Sky, South Sudanese professionals

By Suzanne Jambo

May 22, 2013 – “I have nothing to hide and I walk away with my head high. There was absolutely no board meeting to discuss my issue. The reason given were unilateral spending (whatever that means).” Said Mr. Evertt Minga in an email dated 22nd April 2013 widely shared among South Sudanese Diaspora which made me boil, fume and upset; what’s the meaning of nation-building after decades of liberation struggle if such an extremely competent, professional, ‘one of a kind….’ South Sudanese professional is fired under such clouded circumstances!!! YES, on 16th April this year one Evertt Minga was fired from his job as President of SPECS Engineering. He was fired by the Managing Director of Nilepet with apparently some approval from the South Sudanese government Minister of Petroleum. However, not to exonerate the minister, it is worth noting no official communication from the said minister on the matter. At no point in time was Mr. Minga given a warning verbally or in writing. There were no administrative procedures taken to inform him about his performance whatsoever. He was, in what appears to be, summarily dismissed without due process like a gorilla soldier wrongly accused and immediately fired-squad. Was the dismissal of Evertt Minga a normal procedure and did the company directors follow the norm? THE ANSWER IS ABOLUTELY NOT! Normally, dismissal based on e.g. poor job performance for CEOs comes after a board of directors have done job performance review and they determine that he/she did not meet the minimum standard requirement(s) etc. The Board of directors would be then under an obligation to approach the CEO based on the areas that needs improvement. After they gave him/her few attempts to improve his/her performance and he/she fails then that is when they are obligated to dismiss him/her following a progressive discipline process. Terminating someone on the spot in such a high management level is appropriate only when he/she is involved in a serious behavioural issue that undoubtedly violate company policies. Mr. Minga insists that he was summarily dismissed!

I am writing here so at least, we demand for an independent professional investigation into the summary dismissal of Mr. Minga is conducted and the good minister to explain why, how and when. As well, consequently, this should act as both a deterrent and precedent that stops any other similar dismissal taking place in the RSS in similar fashion again!

This brings me to; what rights do we as RSS citizens’ employees enjoy in the newly established Republic, regardless if we are manual workers or professionals? Notably, the ‘invasion’ of internationals in the new nation; private sector, NGOs, UN and multi nationals pose a serious challenge for the new government to ensure the safe guarding of national employees and their protection from exploitation. With my background, prior to the SPLM secretariat for external relations, I worked extensively with South Sudanese indigenous NGOs; New Sudanese Indigenous NGOs Network, NESI. The Network founded in 2000, drew a membership of up to 77 indigenous NGOs from the initial founders of 6 NGOs only. We initiated NESI as an empowerment network of national NGOs in the face of huge influxes of international NGOs and the United Nations into South Sudan in the late 1980s. Admittedly and thankfully so, the internationals may have both saved lives and drew international humanitarian attention to South Sudan. However, then, almost all we knew of was mainly UNICEF’s Operation Lifeline Sudan, OLS. And if you were pro-indigenous, local empowerment and sustainable development, you were at the ‘mercy of the sky’. As national NGOs and community based organizations, we had to join hands, network and share information in addition to building our capacity to enable us provide qualitative services in the then war-torn areas of South Sudan. That was our prime way of survival; sustainable indigenous communities’ empowerment and the professionals of South Sudan. Needless to add, there was hardly any existence of any private sector, so to speak.

Today, many dynamics have emerged since then. The RSS is an independent country, has its own government, legislature, the judiciary etc. So the question is, why is it, that even after our independence, an highly professional as Mr. Minga has fallen a victim of the ‘rule of the jungle’; summary dismissal? Can he pursue a channel where he could seek justice? And will our system defend or protect Mr. Minga or any other South Sudanese of similar situation? My fear is what we already seem to have; deeply rooted ill employment practices, regulations & policies, weak economy and loopholes both in the labour market and our national economy. The absence of clear and easily understood labour laws, including how both the public and the private sectors should recruit and fire employees is what is greatly discouraging South Sudanese, especially from among the professionals and the Diaspora to join hands, return home and help build the nation; this is perhaps, silently and significantly contributing to the slow death of professionals and manual workers’ zeal to actively participate in nation-building.

So, are South Sudanese as well other African neighbouring countries’ professionals and manual labourers working today in either private or public sectors, including in the government, the UN, international NGOs in RSS some of the most exploited groups of labourers in the world? Likewise, in the public sector; how much employment-friendly regulations and mechanisms exist? Would one say this possibly seem like modern day slavery thriving under extreme corruption, nepotism, tribalism, racially-motivated greed from our own government perpetuated by some senior officials, foreign groups and influential business individuals alike? What are our so called liberation leaders sitting behind public desks doing to address this? And the judicial system, do we have any way how we can seek justice? Should one even mention our parliament. I seem to be pessimistic in how our direction of protecting our people’s rights, how I wish to be proven wrong and very soon.

It is also worth noting that the range of ‘racially-motivated-cum-economic exploitation’ employment conditions in RSS is not only on ill dismissal practices but also, and more so felt in the disparity of wages between the so-called “locals” and “expats”. Hiring/recruitment should be done on the basis of one’s academic, technical and professional ability as opposed to his/her nationality, passport or skin colour for that matter.

Relevant too, similarly, consumers and the public alike are also left at the mercy of the varied exploitative forces of the market, which are if unguarded always manipulative, in terms of price tags, especially when supply drops while demand skyrockets – a situation we have always been in since 2005 and it got worse from February 2012 when the oil pipelines were switched off. As to quality of products and services, well, “beggars aren’t choosers” so goes the saying; we in the RSS and in the absence of goods, produce, markets etc policies and regulations, we are forced to buy any commodity and at any price. Many a time, prices change within the same day and severally, who regulates such prices and who decides? Consumers’ rights & standards of goods…?!?!

Another extremely burning question at this juncture, Is our government failing us to regulate and control employment conditions, protection of the work force including how its managing our economic development? The high level of influx of “expatriates” include internationals and regionals alike; ranging from as far as the USA, China or neighbouring Ethiopia! Plenty of jobs ranging from washing dishes to accounting etc which any South Sudanese could be trained (if a skilled ones not available) and employed instead of an “expat”. This level of degrading ourselves is reaching horrid levels that high level of resentment is simmering and soon someone is bound to take the law into own hands. This, surely will backfire in the face of a new emerging nation as RSS. Our government and judiciary have the inherent role to protect and defend nationals’ right to access training, decent employment and wages. I don’t want even want to begin on the national economic empowerment of our indigenous private sector, my God, small-medium enterprises, SMEs are under no mercy, sky or otherwise! Where would they get capital, any capital?!? One can’t help but ask, when will we start an ALL RSS pro-poor economic policies? When will our own begin to flourish economically so we no longer have to be awarded ‘tribalistic/nepotistic’ and international/regional crooks non-delivery dubious ‘ghost’ contracts? or business empowerment endeavours?

Almost two years to our independence, why hasn’t the Ministry of Labour & Public Services come up with the much-needed policies, guidelines and framework for sound and just employment of South Sudanese nationals and their protection? Similar questions are also posed to the ministry of finance and economic development, when there be any meaningful indigenous economic empowerment, access to loans for small-medium scale, SMEs businesses? How about the protection of our economic rights too? financial regulations to be levied on financial institutions including foreign banks alike, particularly favouring South Sudanese as normally enjoyed by citizens globally?

Suzanne Jambo is a South Sudanese lawyer, communities & human rights activist and is the current SPLM Secretary for External Relations and can be reached via email: [email protected]