SPLM-IO de-Hotelization (Kicking Politicians out of Hotels) Should be Replicated in Juba
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SPLM Legacy
By Mamer Deng, Juba, South Sudan
Saturday, November 16, 2019 (PW) — Eye Radio reported on November 15 that the SPLM-IO has instructed its generals and politicians hotelized in Juba but without membership in the so-called peace implementation mechanisms to seek alternative accommodation or head to the starved cantonment sites. (Hotelization here means hosting politicians and military generals in hotels – fully furnished – and the government put the bills.)
Without bothering to ask how those individuals politicians found themselves in Juba hotels in the first place, I think the incumbent TGONU, OPP (Other Opposition Patties), SSOA (South Sudan Opposition Alliance) and the plethora of hotelized people should follow suit.
De-hotelized them now.
The Sentry Report gave a glimmer into ‘how much’ politicians spend in those hotels per month in its latest publication (disclosing for the first time that an ex-minister’s hotel bill was more that half a million dollar per month.)
The Sentry Report aside, unscientific research at Juba Hotels will erase anyone’s doubt that public fund is worth spending there. A lunch at any five star hotel in Juba (food and water or soda without wine) goes for more than 5,000 ssp on average.
In other words, a Senior National Government Civil servant (an honest Director General or Undersecretary – someone who doesn’t steal from her/his junior staffers) won’t afford lunch. Let’s also remember that those civil servants aren’t paid for months; ostensibly due to economic crisis.
That is one advantage of de hotelizing politicians: to save money to pay civil servants.
Second advantage: Sending politicians to their constituencies will bring them into close vicinity with the lack of basic needs. I mean, clean, piped water and electricity are basic in Juba Hotels – thus, the primary reason politicians prefer them.
In the constituencies – including the suburbs of our national capital Juba, electricity and clean water are luxurious. Majority of South Sudanese only see bottled water and electrified homes on TV screens (TVs screens are common at small trading centers and powered using small generators).
Small steps like this may not translate into meaningful saving of public resources but worth starting.
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