South Sudan: What are the consequences of our poverty?
4 min readBy Alexander Kuol Makuach, Aweil, South Sudan
November 11, 2015 (SSB) — The economy is not picking up. The economy is faltering. The economy is retrogressing. The situation as it is now is very explosive. This stems from the fact that in South Sudan, our total productivity is low due to vicious circles of poverty.
For example, a poor man may not have enough to eat; being underfed, his health may be poor; being physically weak, his working capacity is low, which means that he is poor. A situation of this sort is a common feature in South Sudan economy.
If we move some kilometers outside Juba, we will see the nakedness of a country called South Sudan. There is poverty in our farms, poverty on our animals and our buildings. You see dirty and dilapidated buildings all over the places.
All the troubles, conflicts, private hopes and grief and militancy in our country today are caused mainly by frustration as a result of our high poverty level. We all scramble for wealth, struggle bitterly for fame to compound some of our social problems.
In a society where you have wide inequality of incomes and poverty, corruption is inevitable. Corruption has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation. This is because people are hopelessly poor. They make ends meet through corruption and related malpractices.
Our urban areas are creating false impression that we are a rich country, but the distribution of our wealth is at our disfavor. It is not in the favor of the majority. This means poverty.
When few people are enjoying and vast majority are suffering, we are paving the way for bloody future revolution. Inequality of wealth can cause rancor, bitterness and antagonism. The primary anchor for security is the wellbeing of an ordinary South Sudanese.
Corruption, a major consequence of poverty remains a threat to sustainable democracy. The scourge is at the root of all the tensions and conflicts that have bedeviled the polity. Corruption can be defined as the abuse of public position for private or sectional gain. It flourishes most where politicians and officials of government exercise power without accountability, honesty or fear of the law. They are unpatriotic.
Corruption has done incalculable damage to South Sudan and her people. It has bred gross inefficiency in our institutions, eroded people’s confidence in government and it agencies and has discouraged investments in the nation by both South Sudanese and foreigners.
It has also seriously dented the image of the new nation in the international communities and worlds as a whole. This undesirable human trait is very difficult to minimize or eradicate and yet we want to move South Sudan forward. However, to eradicate corruption, it is ideal for public servant to live in his own house. So, if you ask him to do something wrong, he can certainly disobey the order. It is also good for him to live in his own house so that whenever he retires, he will not be caught with the fear of where to pack into.
If we want to fight corruption, you must give the man enough decent living. It is not everybody that is greedy, if a man has a basic decent living, he may decides that this is enough for him.
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