Taking Service to the People: Upholding the SPLM/SPLA’s Promise of Service Delivery in South Sudan

By PaanLuel Wël, Brisbane, Australia

Sunday, 01 December 2024 (PW) – Let it be recorded in the annals of South Sudanese governance that when the Honourable Michael Makwei Lueth Kang was confronted with the public’s rightful outrage over telecommunication tariffs that would make even a highway robber blush, our esteemed Minister of Information boldly proclaimed, with the casual indifference of Queen Marie Antoinette, that citizens should simply stop using telephones if they found them too expensive.

The SPLM/SPLA revolution, as it turns out, may have delivered freedom but seems to have forgotten the fine print of the promises made during the liberation struggle. A government born of struggle, fed on sacrifice, and raised on the dreams of its people has been reduced to advising citizens to “stop using telephones” if they can’t afford the astronomically high tariffs. If anyone is “taking towns to the people” these days, it’s the telecom companies, and they’ve brought hefty invoices, not basic infrastructure. 

Let us start, as all great grievances do, with the Honourable Michael Makwei Lueth, whose response to the cries of struggling citizens can only be described as a masterclass in missing the point. Faced with complaints about mobile tariffs that rival the GDP of small nations, Makwei quipped: “If you feel that you are being overcharged, you better refrain from using it… We are not overcharging; it is you who is overspending …. If anybody is complaining about high mobile tariffs, refrain from using the telephone because it is not compulsory.”

Not compulsory? Well, neither is wearing clothes, but try suggesting that to the next person you meet on the street of Juba. Communication, like clothing, is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. In a world where economies run on connections and information is the currency of progress, advising citizens to simply ‘opt out’ is as absurd as telling a farmer to stop planting if he doesn’t like the price of seeds.

Now, if the Honourable Minister’s statement has caused us some consternation, imagine the consternation it would cause the late Dr. John Garang. Here was a man who saw liberation as more than just a flag and a national anthem. Dr. John Garang envisioned a South Sudan where revolution was not just about changing rulers but changing lives.

The SPLM/SPLA’s vision of ‘Taking Towns to the People’ was never about creating a government that tells its people to retreat and surrender, but one that advances the frontiers of human potential. “The revolution is meaningless,” Dr. John Garang thundered, “unless it makes our people happy, unless the masses of our people, as a result of our glorious revolution, become prosperous.” Prosperity that includes access to communication, one might add – not exclusion from it.

As Dr. John Garang himself prophetically warned, “Unless we provide these essential services to our people, unless the revolution provides these things to our people, then the people will prefer the government of the NIF that provide salt to the government of the SPLM that does not provide anything for its people.”

Dr. John Garang spoke of taking towns to the people, not taking phones away from the citizens. He promised a government that would transform bullets into books, guns into growth, and hardship into hope. Instead, we seem to have traded one kind of struggle for another—this time against our own leaders’ indifference. Is the Republic of South Sudan a textbook case of the same monkeys swinging in a different forest?

What would Dr. John Garang think of a government that dismisses the grievances of its citizens with the rhetorical equivalent of a shrug? He warned us of this very danger, saying: “If the SPLM cannot deliver anything and we just shout revolution, revolution… when the barest minimum of essential things of life are not available, then the people will drive us into the sea, even though there is no sea here; they will find one.”

Make no mistake: there is no shortage of seas to find, even in landlocked South Sudan. They are seas of frustration, seas of despair, and seas of unmet expectations. And judging by the Honourable Minister’s statement, our government is busy charting a course straight into their depths.

Dr. John Garang was a pragmatist, a man of action as much as vision. He understood that governance is not a God-given right but a contract—a deal between the leaders and the led. And like any deal, it has terms. The people work, the government delivers. Not delivering, Dr. John Garang warned, would doom the SPLM/SPLA-led government to the same fate as the Khartoum regimes we fought so hard to replace.

“We must depend on ourselves,” Dr. John Garang declared, “we must learn to rely on our own resources.” Yet how can citizens rely on their resources when government policy actively works to price them out of essential communication services?

Let’s not sugarcoat it: telling citizens to “stop using phones” when they can’t afford them is not leadership; it’s the political equivalent of a chef telling his diners to stop eating if they don’t like the food – or President Kiir telling Jieng Jonglei and Lou Nuer to stop keeping cattle if they don’t like Murle cattle raids. Governance is about solving problems, not sidestepping them. 

In today’s world, connectivity isn’t a luxury; it’s a lifeline. It’s how Dinka and Nuer cattle keepers and farmers in Equatoria check market prices, students access education, and businesses grow. Dr. John Garang understood this need for empowerment. He urged us to build a nation on hard work and self-reliance, saying: “The only way to achieve strength as a nation is to be economically strong.”

But how can the people of South Sudan be economically strong when the tools of progress are priced out of their reach? How can they be self-reliant when even the act of making a phone call feels like a financial leap of faith? 

Let’s be clear: the people of South Sudan are not asking for miracles. They are not demanding Amarat mansions or NilePet jobs or J-1 appointments —they are asking for the bare minimum of what any government should provide: affordable services, accessible opportunities, and a chance to build a better life. 

If our leaders cannot deliver these basics, they should prepare for what Dr. John Garang called “intifadha.” For the people will not sit idle while their aspirations are reduced to a footnote in the annals of Salva Kiir’s South Sudan history. They will ask, as Dr. John Garang himself would undoubtedly say: “Where is the promise? Where is the vision?” of the liberation struggle?

So, to the Honourable Minister Michael Makwei Lueth and all who share his dismissive stance, let this serve as a reminder: governance is not about managing complaints; it’s about meeting them with solutions. Leadership is not about telling people what they can do without; it’s about providing what they cannot do without. 

Dr. John Garang once said: “If we do not deliver on our promises, the people will drive us into the sea.” Perhaps it’s time for our leaders to dust off their swimming lessons because the tides of public frustration are rising and the leadership may be thrown into the deep Sea, into the Nile. For if we cannot afford the luxury of leadership, we surely cannot afford the cost of failure. 

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“Dr. John Garang Speaks: The Call for Good Governance in the Republic of South Sudan

What is the Government in the View of Dr. John Garang? Dr. John Garang Talking to the SPLA Military Officers About Leadership and the Role of the Government in Readiness for the Post-CPA Era

With the advent of peace, comrades, we have reached a new phase of our armed struggle, a new phase of transforming the guns and the bullets—that is military power—into political power, and using the political power to achieve socioeconomic development rapidly. This is because there is no meaning of revolution—the revolution is meaningless, unless it makes our people happy, unless the masses of our people, as a result of our glorious revolution, become prosperous. Socioeconomic prosperity quantifiable with the degree to which people go ahead and advance in their individual and communal lives: they get food, they get shelter, they get clean drinking water, they get healthcare services, they get social amenities, they get economic infrastructure such as roads, they get jobs and so forth. Unless we provide these essential services to our people, unless the revolution provide these things to our people, then the people will prefer the government of the NIF that provide salt to the government of the SPLM that does not provide anything for its people. This is simple arithmetic: if the SPLM cannot deliver anything and we just shout REVOLUTION, REVOLUTION; the cattle of the people are not vaccinated; their children are not vaccinated or sent to school; there is nothing to eat, there are no roads, there are no basic necessities of life—there is no cloth, no needle, not even a razor blade—when the barest minimum of essential things of life are not available, then the people will drive us into the sea, even though there is no sea here they will find one. Mind you, we have no other choice. The old Sudan has really been based on a fiction, on deception.

Hakuma—the government, is considered to be something that has a heap of resources, a heap of money, that it has the money; it has the resources. And then people want to take from the government; people want to loot these heaps of resources, these heaps of free money from the government. Comrades, there is a big contradiction here, you see, a government that has impoverished its citizens, a government where citizens are very poor to support themselves, to make a simple living, that kind of government cannot have anything, it cannot have heaps of resources, heaps of money, because where else, if not from the citizens, will the government get its resources, its money from? It is from the people, it is from production that a government obtains its resources from, because Hakuma—the government, in and of itself has nothing. What is the government by the way? What is it? Ye monydiit yinde—what kind of an old man is he? Where is he from? Remember that people that are poor have a poor government too and people that are weak have a weak government too. These are natural facts because where else will things fall from, which part of the sky? It is only when people are strong, then they will have a strong government, it is not the other way around; it is only when citizens of the country are rich, then they will have a rich government, it is not the other way around. Our concept of the government has misleadingly portrayed the government as a power thing with a lot of resources, and people want to benefit from it, to milk it. It should be the other way round, for it is the people who must be very productive in order to make their government a big thing with a lot of resources, to make their government strong. There is no any other way other than that.

This misplaced conception of the government is the major problem haunting many developing countries in Africa and in the world, because the administration, public administration, has become the biggest industry in many African countries, including the Sudan; it absorbs a very big portion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In fact, the administration should only facilitate production, should provide a conducive atmosphere for economic production, should provide the optimal situation for production. So the New Sudan, beginning with the Movement now because there should be no passing between the Movement now and the New Sudan, for it is the Movement that merges into the New Sudan. There is no other time that we shall say we are now entering the New Sudan, that we have now arrived in the New Sudan, because it is the Movement that develop into a New Sudan, we are actually already in the New Sudan. Therefore, there is no other time coming for the arrival of the New Sudan, we are already there and in it. So the New Sudan, beginning with the Movement now, must be based on concrete production, on real economic production, we must produce things; otherwise we will have no future. Now, by saying that let’s us start with nothing and get a lot, and end up with a lot of resources. This can be done; it is doable comrades. Some of our places in the countryside are very productive: Koor-Chum is very productive, Maruah is very productive, the area between Raat and Pochalla is very productive—this is alluvial soil from the Boma plateau.

But in order to be economically productive and viable, in order for our economy to be based on concrete, real production, we must rid ourselves, our people, and our country of the aid dependency syndrome. Food aid from the UN has destroyed our work ethics; it has destroyed our people since from Itang and from all the refugees’ camps. We will organize our food production system, and anyone who wants to eat relief food, the UN humanitarian food, they should go and be refugees in Kenya or in Uganda or in any other country, but not here. And let the relief food be distributed to them there. Anyone who lives in agricultural areas, let them plant and grow their own food. Our civilians should grow their own food; they should practice and engage in agricultural activities, for it is the civilians themselves that will be feeding the soldiers protecting the country. Even the army that is not engaged in direct war, let them farm. Then we can confidently and proudly tell the relief peoples that ‘take away these dirty beans of yours and go away with it, we don’t need it anymore’. We are going to do this, because the only way you can have something is to be economically strong. And in that strength, from that power, we will create our own resources; nothing falls from the sky. When we liberate the country tomorrow, we got to work! We must work in order to get things. Nothing is going to come free. And we are going to dismiss these relief peoples because they are the ones destroying our country! They make people lazy. People say that relief food will come, why I should I bother to toil, and if the relief food doesn’t come my dear people, what will we eat? Therefore, we must depend on ourselves; we must learn to rely on our own resources, our own food, produce within the country, not dirty beans donated from outside. This is very important for our economic viability and political stability as a nation. It has to be done; it must be done because there is no other option, no other alternative. Do we want to be the worst copycat of the past and present Khartoum regimes? Then why did we allow ourselves to die in vain and our people to suffer for no reason? Where is the promise? Where is the vision? People will ask and you will be expected to provide the answers.

Lastly, we must tackle corruption in our society, not just within the corridors of power, within the government. You see, our people view the government, the role of the government, in a very strange, frightening way. The government is seen as an object to be looted. For example, when somebody become a minister, five years later the people will start saying, look at the son of so and so, he has been a minister for five (5) years and he has not even built himself a hut, he has no car, not even a suit. This is the root cause of corruption in our culture, in our country and in Africa. The same people that are ready to cast the first stone on you are the ones that will shout the loudest how the son or daughter of so and so has not even bought himself a suit, built herself a nice house or bought the latest car. As a leader you have to know where your priorities are and what your vision for the country is; otherwise, you would get distracted and end up plundering the country in the name of building yourself a hut, in the name of buying a suit or a new car model.

This is why we in the SPLM/A need to have, must have, a clear vision about the social, political and economic development strategies and priorities. We must accomplish this or else we would end up just like the various governments that have come and gone in Khartoum. We were not fighting them because they are Arab or Muslim or Northerners: it is because they were not delivering on anything that any citizen in any country in the world would rightfully expect from his or her government. If the SPLM/A-led government does not deliver on its promises, it will be doomed like various governments of the North. To govern is not a God-given right to be taken for granted; it is a social contract between the governed and the government of which each side, particularly the government, must abide by and fulfil its side of the bargain. Otherwise there would be Intifadha and you are thrown into the Sea, into the Nile.”

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