South Sudan: From honorable traffic officers to disgraceful traffic racketeers
By Yach Atiop Yach, Juba, South Sudan
July 1, 2016 (SSB) — The believe(s) of any ordinary citizen(s) in understanding the upright role of a traffic officer is to control the smooth flow of traffic, safeguard pedestrians’ crossing, inspect faulty motorists and to impose stiff penalties to punish those who faulted the traffic rules and regulations in all aspect and in respect to laws of the land.
However, the roles of the a traffic officers in reference to this Republic (South Sudan) has very astounding roles that made me to express these sentiments as I term their roles as traffic officers for pilfering or pocketing in simple terms. I came to believe that our traffic staff are facing the scorching sun and heat wave for the sole purpose of collecting money from truck drivers and other motorist which are ferrying stuff like charcoals, retails goods and service usually ferry from shop to shop.
This practice is contrary to the universal role of any traffic officers whose roles have been explained in the introductory part of this article. This writer lived across the Gumbo Bridge particularly in Sherikat and the number of road blocks laid by our traffic department will shock you when you count them. To me, they add up to seven stopping points from the onset of the previous headquarters of the Sudken Construction Company just after you passed the Rajaf Hill on your way from Nesitu. I am describing them to public so that any interested individual can verified and attest or dispute my observations.
The first and second outposts are few meters each apart and trucks must stop at whatever cost despite being close apart, then you will find the third one near the Bomas Hotel or St. Peter Primary school playground, just after leaving that spot, you will get fourth post near Wunbur Petrol Station and the section of the road there is completely eroded beyond repair due to recurrent stoppage of these heavy trucks. After leaving that spot near Wunbur Petro Station, you get the fifth one near Ministry of Telecommunication, adjacent to Bor road junction.
The sixth post is at Lelty General trading Store and company before you complete the seventh one at Gumbo road roundabout. These posts are located within less five kilometers and what they are doing is to collect only money from fuel tankers and long Lorries and trucks that are coming into and leaving Juba not forgetting what others are doing at the other inlets/outlets of Juba city and other part of the towns in the country. Apart from what are being manned after leaving Gumbo Bridge going into Konyokonyo Suburb.
Imagine if this section of the road is hosting 7 traffic posts within the environment I frequently commuted through. What of the other parts of the city and country at large are they experiencing?
I came to question myself; are the bosses of this traffic officers aware of what their sons and daughters are doing on this section of the road? My answer was/is yes base on some of the parameters I analyzed. When I looked at the actors, they are the very same guys who are present in those corners every day every month I saw them, that mean someone somewhere have duly have trusted in them and assigned them to those spots and they are doing good job to him/her and there is no change of guard for them.
Reason number two is the current worse economic hit that is worsening minute by minute and day by day and thus the organized forces have not been receiving their salaries spanning three – four months, hence they have used this opportunity as “recovery plan” for their unpaid salaries.
The other question is; do they know they are condoning corruption and inefficiency? My answer again is yes, because these men and women in traffic uniform don’t fall from blue sky but hailed from the tukuls/shelters we lived in as they are husbands and wives to those families they hailed from, but they should know that they have killed or they are killing their moral integrities as they have been short-lived by the practice to steal and conceal the vice they should have fought for regardless of their economic lives as they have been mandated by law.
But these personal thoughts should be viewed by those who are harboring these practice as they are for someone who might fall from the sky or somehow eating in the house of the riches meanwhile, didn’t they know that I also share the same economic hardships that made them betrayed their integrities.
My appeal to our traffic office in Juba is to investigate what their officers are doing. I don’t want to believe that these men and women are collecting these monies in the name of generating revenues for the governments either State or National as their practice will be justified if all the traffic leadership is aware of what is happening on this side of Sherikat.
The traffic leadership should also explain the reasons for laying these numerous traffic posts for the sole reason of receiving monies from the drivers as there is nothing else is being demanded from them as I watched over what they do every moment I witnessed their operations.
This practice is embarrassing our name as South Sudan who recently joined the East African community although I have no much praises for other countries traffics officers over our very own South Sudanese and we can’t be a new member with those attitudes of being a greedy and nasty thinkers when it come to how to generates revenues if at all, it is the reason for creating these numerous traffic posts for extorting monies from the foreign trucks drivers.
Yach Atiop Yach is an Atlas Corps Alumni (USA) – Atlas Corps is an International Network of Nonprofit Leaders and Organizations, He holds Bachelor Degree of Business Administration (Accounting) from Kampala International University (KIU) – Uganda. You can reach him through his email, atiopy@gmail.com
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