From the Unknown Gun-men to the Unknown Graft-Men: Sack, Praise and Reappoint Circus in South Sudan
Mayik Ayii
By Malith Alier, Kalgoorlie, Australia
Saturday, December 11, 2021 (PW) — Evolution is real. It is a continuous process, slow as it is gradual. According to science, life evolved over million years to what it is today. Dinosaurs and dodos, which both are extinct, went through an evolution. The dinosaurs and dodos’ extinction is painfully attributed to the inability to adapt to new environments. Had their bodies responded positively to the changing environment, these animals would still be alive today.
The operators in the public service in South Sudan have learnt a lesson or two from the evolution story. The officials who swim in the system are now more adept and sleeker for the purpose of survival. The power clusters or layers that constituted the state of South Sudan are the politicians, the senior army officers, the top bureaucrats and the slanting gradient to the bottom.
South Sudan has come a long way to the current state of affairs. “The freedom fighters” rolled in from the bush with heightened expectation and militant resolve. The first ministers of the interim (2005 – 2011) those days grabbed any million-dollar dollops for themselves and their receptive clansmen.
When they faced arrest their clansmen and friends would break into prisons to free them. Phase one was a communal experiment that would not last into the future. The fickle system tried to fight back the unjustified clan support with primitive tools to no avail. The clan juggernaut seemed to have morphed into some form of adaptation.
The top posts in the civil service are now obtainable through lobbying and that is why you see the same individuals being decreed in and out and in again. No surprises there. It is normalised in the citizens’ minds for 16 years.
A true civil service relies on the competitive recruitment of office bearers. From undersecretary to assistant directors, all the posts should be filled through competitive and transparent recruitment. This means that if any post becomes vacant, the government department should procedurally commence a process to fill the post through legal channels.
It can either do it by itself or outsource the process to a recruitment agent who can do it fairly or above board. But for South Sudan, this transparent and fair process cannot be allowed to take root because the country is still young! And by being young, it continues to rely on lobbying where lobbyists move from house-to-house consulting relatives, friends and acquaintances to identify potential recruits.
This is called “opinion shopping.” The aim is to manage the potential position winners to “remember me” who brought them to the positions they hold. It is a form of unwritten agreement that if they do perform or conform, they will unceremoniously be let go through the lobbyists’ corridor. A quid pro quo permanent arrangement!
They say nature abhors a vacuum. A vacuum is created when the legal process of recruitment of government employees is abandoned. The void or vacuum must be filled by something in this case lobbying often preceded by opinion shopping.
If this happened, the country is the sore loser. You can complain of tribalism, nepotism, favouritism and cronyism. Service delivery which is the essence of public service is utterly eroded because of the actions of a few who had the power to capture the system.
Bizarre explanations seemed to have come out from those who preside over the unjustified system. “We are human” was one of those out of touch explanations advanced when a certain minister was given another docket. Another one claimed that sacked officials who failed to perform or involve in graft will rebel if subjected to investigation.
How many officials rebelled or went to the bush as a result of investigations since 2005? A little statistic would do better than a mere conjecture based on past rebellions the country experienced during and after the interim period.
The author, Malith Alier, is a concerned South Sudanese Australian public intellectual and political commentator who can be reached via his email address: alierjokdeng@gmail.com
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