How Inequality Undermines Growth and Hurts Everyone in South Sudan
4 min readBy Awut Mayom Agok, Paris, France
February 4, 2016 (SSB) — The growing inequality in South Sudan have a broad social, political and economic effects by reducing stable demand for services, undermining the inclusiveness and responsiveness by political and economic institutions, limiting access to education, and stunting individual development. Yet our understanding of how these policies interact with the broader economy is limited.
Unequal growth concentrates wealth in the hands of a tiny slice of consumers who can only spend so much money. In turn, the vast majority of earners are left with nothing for living. Low growth makes everyone poorer than they otherwise might be, including those who own the means of production.
Inequality produces other bad economic outcomes, too, such as the underutilization of the nation’s human capital, inadequate public investment in both human and physical capital, and social ills that are costly to address, diverting away resources from investment to individual pockets.
The growing gap between the haves and the nots have, is responsible for more than the misery of poverty we are all going through. Poverty here is the state of lack.
Health and social problems such as “Obesity, Mental illness, alcohol and drugs abuse, homicides, imprisonment rates, lowered life expectancy. Over consumption of resources by individuals and the lack of social mobility,” all have in common bond and shared strong links to inequality of wealth. Despite the huge gap between a common man and the powerful man, we are all poorer for living in more unequal societies.
The common man will die of hunger and small diseases like cholera and diarrhea, while the so call rich will still follow because obesity and drug abuse fears no one. Inequality is as bad for the rich as it is for the poor. Society is poorer as inequality becomes greater.”
The distance (the gab) in the income level is too wide in that the salary of a low paid worker per month is more or less than the meal per night in the high paid house.
The sons of the common man are trained only on how to shoot with the gun while the sons of the rich are only train on how to take obesity as a pride, your father’s title as your identity. We are all going to be on the same boat.
The gap between so call official rates of exchange and the black market is also unimaginable, nevertheless, these 3 operating rates of exchange are still view to have only one root and that root is none other than the officials running the financial institutions in this country.
The common people are starving to earn just a day living, struggling to get his 250 ssp monthly salary and pay his bus fare to work on daily basis at 20 ssp per day. The highly paid still are given over 50000 ssp as a monthly salary + allowances, given a v8 engine vehicle for transport, refueled on daily basis and yet the taxes payers are the 250 ssp earners per month. Seriously, does this makes sense?
Some people are working day and night and their monthly salary is kept postponed for more than 6 months, where on earth can a living be postponed to tomorrow? Why would people die if life is something that can be found again tomorrow? I wonder how people will survive in these scandals.
Scholarships are not given to those who deserve them according to their performances but based on connections between uncles, generals and other undefined groups that take advantage young girls which is another big problem.
These groups would want to help ladies who accepts their intentions of leaving their kids and wives at home and make you his mistress in order to get a scholarship, to hell with that scholarship.
We are likely to soon know more about how inequality affects everyone’s economics, social and political fortunes in South Sudan. It is matter of time; the anemic economy will leave no stones unturned for both.
Thanks for reading this message and take it how it will impact on you and me in future. You can reach me through my email: Nyande Mayom <nyandemayom@gmail.com>
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