‘We are not allergic to gold money,’ says the unpaid, struggling civil servants in South Sudan
4 min read
NILEPET Building in Juba-South Sudan
By Malek Arol Dhieu, Juba, South Sudan
Wednesday, 03 April 2024 (PW) — If something is wrong with the oil money in South Sudan, how about the gold money? We can be paid with the gold money. We are not allergic to gold money. We are not allergic to uranium money either. We are not allergic to nickel money as well.
And by the way, why is gold not mentioned one day? Or was it announced that no one should say anything about it? I often hear of it being mined, but the amount mined and where it goes to, I swear I have never heard anything about it.
Maybe it is mined by a lion, sold by a rhino and the money gets consumed by an elephant. Wow! What a prestigious mineral!
What happens when the source of money for the country gets blocked? The country switches to another source. Now that South Sudan has been depending on oil and something is currently wrong with its flow and market, what is the alternative?
There should be an alternative. When non-oil revenues are incorruptly collected and combined with the gold money, is this not an alternative? Can this money not pay the civil servants? It can pay the civil servants.
But who is there to put the civil servants into consideration that much? No one. One annoying thing is that, some civil servants look like they are in a different South Sudan. They truly look like they are in South Sudan where 100 USD is exchanged for 50,000 SSP.
Their weights have never dropped an inch since the economic crisis climaxed this year.
But other civil servants, those who are short-handed, first go to funeral home in the morning and proceed to their offices from there. They go to bid farewell to their dear ones who have succumbed to the consequences of this deadly inflation.
So, why would the same workers differ in treatment? Look at how tragic this is to say. The suffering of the civil servants is beyond description. They work from month to month without salary and they still go to their offices. So patriotic, I tell you.
Foretellers keep saying that a country should have multiple sources of income. If one source is suddenly blocked, others can continue giving the country money to pay the civil servants with. But the leaders used to hear it through one ear and out of the other. It has now come true. The channel of oil is narrowing or has narrowed already, what is an oil-dependent South Sudan going to do?
Remember the oil has been wholly consumed without reserving a little bit for future or emergency use. Now, the time for oil reserves has come but there is no oil reserves. This is a mess! This indicates that if what is befalling the oil is going to continue, then the civil servants are going to stay unpaid.
And by the way, if the civil servants were not being monthly paid when the oil was overflowing, how about now when it is flowing in drops? People should be worrisome. But the good news is that, a one-month salary is announced to be received this week. If little money is chopped from gold, at least a two-month salary can be afforded.
Just do it as if you are mad. Take a sharp knife and cut a boxful of money from gold to pay the civil servants with. You will never see them developing diarrhoea for eating gold money. You will never see them having an immune reaction for eating gold money. You will never see them dying of eating gold money. The civil servants are not allergic to gold money.
Thanks for reading “Sowing the Seed of Truth”.
The author, Malek Arol Dhieu, is a concerned South Sudanese citizen who can be reached via his email address: Malek Arol Dhieu <malengaroldit@gmail.com>
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