The US sanctions on super rich South Sudanese Government Officials is a welcome Reprieve
By Malith Alier, Juba
It is no secret anymore. It is officially endorsed by the President and only awaits implementation by the Secretary of Treasury in consultation with the secretary of State.
The move by the Obama Administration to impose targeted sanctions on those officials on both sides of the conflict generates mixed reactions in the country. Like any other political issue, there are those who are for and against the sanctions. Those who are against the sanctions would like the downtrodden to continue to suffer and those who have access to resources to continue to enrich themselves unfairly.
The country’s oil has been flowing to the world markets since inking of CPA in 2005. The CPA wealth sharing clause agreed a fifty per cent to the South and fifty per cent to the central government in Khartoum. However, the government in Juba was recalcitrant with the large amounts of petrodollars allocated to it. First was the denial of non receipt of the agreed amount. The government maintained that it received less than fifty per cent because the central government deployed less transparency over oil. The SPLM government in the South was totally ignorant of the barrels produced in a daily monthly or yearly basis.
The same lack of transparency was the norm in the Southern government. The ordinary south Sudanese eyes were fixed on referendum and for that reason not bother to know about oil and other issues considered less important at the time. Second, the war impoverished government officials took advantage of the state of South Sudanese who emerged from the devastating conflict and were desperate to rebuild their lives before the D-day. The petrodollars allocated to the government disappeared before reaching Southern Sudan. Each one of us knows the case between the first Minister of Finance and the SPLM secretary General about the disappearance of US Dollars 30m in the 2005/2006 financial year. That was the first crack in the financial mismanagement by government officials.
The President declared war on corruption and to that effect established anticorruption body to fight it. Assets were declared but so far the people of South Sudan did not know whether the huge cash stashed away in US and Europe was disclosed. The list of suspected 75 super rich was published, but that did not end corruption. It was too little too late.
The six failures of the government were highlighted, but no reforms were introduced. SPLM vision and mission is collapsed, foreign policy has failed, corruption was thriving, tribalism paralysed the system and violations of the constitution were points noted by the very SPLM members. However, it was business as usual. Then is the war pitting SPLM against SPLM and SPLA against SPLA.
Enough is enough, enters President Obama of the USA. “And here I declare a national emergency to deal with that threat” the Citizen Newspaper April 5 2014.
I order the Secretary of Treasury to freeze your money, homes, cars, boats or private jets on the US soil. This is not only that, it also extends to those in possessions of US companies abroad. Your assets may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn or otherwise dealt in at your wish. I have taken this position because your crimes are as red as crimson. The cries of the people of South Sudan have reached me in the white House and I have to act in their interest.
Thank you Obama, the money was forever stolen from us. It was never to return. The country leaders were soliciting direct foreign investment but ironically siphoned away huge sums to be stashed in developed countries that do not need it. You have acted wisely by not sanctioning the country as a whole. The ordinary citizens will not feel pinch of the super rich sanctions. The SPLM led government employed too much talk but too little action for public good.
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