South Sudan government sobers up in the face of Economic Crisis
By Malith Alier, Kampala, Uganda
July 6, 2016 (SSB) — July 9th celebration will be low key. Purchase of V8 for ministers, deputies and other constitutional post holders suspended.
These are just the latest moves by the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGoNU) over the last week of June 2016.
“Since 2005, the government purchased V8s for ministers and that was not correct” says the minister of Communication, Information Technology, Telecommunication and Postal Services, Michael Makuei Lueth.
These came in the foot of University lecturers, judges and other civil servants’ strikes over unpaid salaries and other conditions going back many years.
In 2015 the government battled accusations of spending too much on 9th July celebrations while citizens were purported to face acute hunger across the country. The said amount was under reported by the very government to counter the backlash from the opposition and the public at large.
The true amount as reported by Voice of America (VoA) in the last week of June 2016 was said to be over thirty million South Sudanese Pounds. The official figure was reported as SSP 150,000 only.
The issue of luxurious V8s for top government officials and even for mere directors has been in the news for the right reasons. Last year Parliament banned the purchase of these vehicles because of high costs associated with them.
Before the crisis, the cost of a single Land Cruiser V8 used to be over three hundred thousand South Sudanese Pounds. It is now over two million South Sudanese Pounds. This is prohibitively unaffordable currently in the face of economic meltdown the country is in.
The deterioration of the economy is not only the concern of citizens alone but also the region and farther afield. In June 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visited the country for what they termed “consultation” about the economy. The economic hitch was a result of 2013 that hit hard the single source of government income, petroleum. It has been further exacerbated by sharp drop in oil prices worldwide.
The IMF would like the country to work to reduce the accumulated deficit by working on the prohibitive payroll among others. The IMF would want the country to diversify away from a single commodity by expanding into other sectors of the economy such as agriculture.
With the disproportionate portion of the country budget about 50 percent going to security sector, the government is in the tight corner on how to bring changes in the army and other security organs in the short run.
The Compromise Peace Agreement (CPA), the Accession to the East African Community (EAC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) consultation offer the government adequate opportunities to effect needed reforms in the government and the country as a whole.
The reform agendum needed to be supported by all. The country started bleeding immediately after CPA of 2005 where the government started on luxurious note with V8s. Corruption, which is not well defined up to now set in. The rest is academic.
It is not too late to mend. South Sudanese people wherever there are, are saying that enough is enough. Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and the civil society are for a new path out of the past roller coaster.
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