Does the cabinet’s decision to halt oil production require us to tighten our belts once more?
It goes without remembering a saying that goes “if a man deceives me once, shame on him, if twice shame on me”. At the onset of everything SPLM was quite aware of political dishonesty of its partner NCP and how sluggish it was to execute national projects relating to CPA and unity of the country. Theft of oil is as old as the life time of the CPA started when Global Witness gave a tip on differing figures in the share between the two antagonists.
NCP had excelled in political molestation. It had teased several political parties in the arena and quite handsomely won the battle. SPLM was the litmus test to it also failed in the same tricks. It had denied SPLM the portfolios of Energy and Finance at the very beginning of the accord. They giants of the NCP only persuaded SPLM to settle for Foreign Affairs, a position which almost set SPLM on ablaze. Protecting and rejuvenating the image of a country ruined for decades became a daunting task to the SPLM especially standing as a representative of a president known for war crimes internationally. Of course, a minister is an employee of the boss Mr. President.
Now that the cabinet of South Sudan has pulled off the lid on the Pandora box on the economy of Sudan and South Sudan, something touchy nervous to both nations. This late decision means a lot to Sudan likewise South Sudan whose daily livelihood depends on oil. To Sudan of course the only exit is to mobilize the north against the South especially in areas of still shared interests, Heglig and Abyei oil fields. It is the only applicable strategy in healing this economic septic wound the South has inflicted upon it. Mobilizing ragtag militias at along chaotic borders seems to be immediate on its table, while South Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states rebellions are sacrificial lambs in the economic mess.
For our case here in the South, the decision means tightening our belts harder, reducing daily volumes of our baskets on the market especially amongst the use to be well off families. Reduction of executives and legislators benefits with their aimless foreign daily travelling on public expenses. The decision would mean strengthening and boosting the roles of foreign diplomats representing us in foreign countries. This is curtailing the number of staffs accompanying them on foreign trips.
This could be summarized into a very serious austerity measure where the government would be forced to reduce the number of redundant workforce leading to automatic reduction of cost of maintenance. In this round, the resourceful loose hand government will embark on tough measures in controlling its worthless daily expenditures. The already government on piped projects would be withheld in order to preserve cash in areas of imminent threats like border security.
If we are to survive with less economic pressure, taxes on goods and commodities would also follow the same trend of reduction so as to impact market exorbitant prices. GoSS needs not to be told this time round that importation of worthless “V 8” cars are of less important to public. In other parallel security sectors , like the army, police, wildlife and fire brigade, it is a sure deal that capable, manageable and sizeable force is what we are going for. If up to now SPLA has not sort its poor money management of carry money in boxes by the cashiers, this is a late call to refrain from that. SPLA general headquarters also needs to give accurate numbers of their soldiers who shall be payable through the issuance of service identity cards to avoid paying none existing officers. In regard to this former minister of Labour, Hon Awut Deng Acuil had belted hard on civil servants sometime back. Fictitious names on payrolls were weeded off.
To our brothers still engage in the battle of cattle in Jonglei, we either bury our hatchets earlier because the season would be a bad season of where no neighbor minds of his neighborhoods. Already the government has got enough problems in its basket to solve with money. Maintaining huge displaced persons with together with our luxurious foreign houses or families would amount to conflicting decisions. Remember that cost of building pipeline to rescue our potbellied stomachs is a serious bottleneck that the government would never afford to go without, likewise feeding our auxiliary machines (the auto machines and mobiles) needs the government to be on its toes.
Another area where the government needs a serious curtailment is foreign trainings in the name of capacity building. The government should be keen enough to shut that corridor down completely unless it is of great immediacy or unless it is sponsored by our development partners. Huge amount of money has gone to training that are fruitless at the end of the day. Example paying on scholarship and costly foreign examinations which do not have benefits even to people that they are meant for.
Questionable quality workforce assigned in registration of persons
Having scanned through the forms and the nature of information needed from respondents, they are well detailed in a simple and clear language. The design and format is also professional in standard. Now the awkward part that I saw when I glanced through the forms after being filled especially part hand written is that, quite a good number of personnel assigned to fill these forms don’t write legibly and interpreting questions to respondents is also questionable.
Inasmuch as majority of them come from Arabic education background, understanding the questions to interpret the application is a bug. When I glanced through several forms already filled, my eyes met with a lot of mistakes. Of these mistakes are usage of surname, state of origin, ethnicity, place of residence and many others.
The handwritings on papers is as illegible as that of a child in primary two class.
It is this very misinterpreted information which the experts seated on computers will definitely key into the system as data leading to a distorted facts. A cousin of mine sharing the same name with me had his first name written as surname and each of his dependents had a different surname. Imagine all these dependents are his kids and the wife and each had a delink parentage association judged by their names. I thought my kids can have the same surname with me except the wife who might have retained her parental names in our South Sudanese Africa way.
In such a case, there is no way a graduate from English education background can fail to differentiate between surname, place of birth, place of parents’ origin as well as current residence. These people making all these simple mistakes are Arabic graduates because I don’t think whether migration staff who recruited them had also recruited primary school kids.
In fact, majority of people who graduated in the North do pretend to be literate in both Arabic and English languages but in reality they are not. Indeed there are those who had gone to good schools in the north to warrant them such qualification. This number is meager compared to huge chunk who had only mastered English alphabets neatly.
Mr. Maduot Parek, the gentleman in charge is a person who likes to go for professional work. Nobody has notified his office of all these messes that are taking place. Let our Arabic language learned brothers and sisters first polish their English language before they take up crucial positions which need occupants to be linguistically literate enough so as to minimize errors. Of course forms were designed in English language to conform with constitutional requirement, and there is no way you can be denied that inalienable right to work in this republic but you have to do some dos before you apply in such public scrutinized position.
Our passports and national ID cards have to spell our names correctly. Time has gone expired for when Arabs use to tell us that Africa names are difficult to pronounce and write. Besides that there should be reduction in those northern practices of standing with a witness before one qualifies for issuance of any of the national documents. Am sick of being asked to present birth certificate or its equivalent before I can apply for any other documents. First of all did our lawmakers really passed such foreign procedures of doing things. It is absolutely not and where did we find it, it was acquired from the North.
If up to now there still only one health clinic in my county of over hundred thousand inhabitants, no single hospital, where do you logically think I was born in or if I had passed the whole of my childhood age without a single sign of immunization or vaccination, do you reasonably really expect my mother to produce a birth certificate for herself and me.
In addition to that I might be the only person from my family residing in Juba, probably the other person is in Wau or serving in the army in Torit, can lack of a relative to witness in the procession of my documents be a barrier. Yes there could be few of us who really need cross examination to establish their true identities or foreign persons of origins wanted to capitalize on legal lapse to get register, such are rare cases and they can be handled by the experts assigned in the process.
Issuance of national documents is my birth right that needs nobody to represent me in any case. Am truly in objection of all the rigorous processes that do not have legal bases or even culturally in the context of South Sudan as a nation. We need to do simple thing in South Sudan and that is to desist from northern way of doing things unless it is legally anchored in our law. Representing me to acquire my nationality right is not a legal affidavit at all. Laws of every country or land are derived from their customs, cultures and practices.
Atok Dan is a media expert residing in Juba. He can be reached at atokbaguoot@gmail.com
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