By Malek Arol Dhieu
It is confusing to fight for the welfare of the civil servants. The same civil servants suffering are the same civil servants questioning the identity of someone trusted to give them services. What for?
Even if the one trusted is a lion, but a lion of the species which delivers services, then what is wrong with that? If the one trusted is a cow, but a cow that listens to the voices of the citizens, then what is wrong with it? A tail, horns, four legs, or long ears? Whether a lion or a cow, what matters is the service delivery.
As an opinion writer fighting for the welfare of civil servants, it sometimes discourages me from seeing the civil servants becoming more concerned with what does not add value to their lives. They do not know where to fight when to fight, who to fight, and unfortunately, how to fight.
I thought the civil servants would come together, sit down and formulate “a statement of the statements” and submit it to the presidency. The statement would be “The problem is not here. The problem is there”. When the presidency fails to understand it, then the civil servants explain it that the reason why the civil servants and soldiers are not paid monthly is not in the Ministry of Finance, but it is in the Presidency.
If the presidency were actually serious about paying the civil servants and soldiers on a monthly basis, then can a Minister of Finance sit on the instructions of the president to pay the civil servants on the 30th of every month? The presidency should not play with the people’s minds. It is a political game and the civil servants who are not aware of that game should get it clear here. The government should not blindfold the civil servants that it is caring when it is not.
To me, the Ministers of Finance are relieved not because they have failed to release the salary, but because they have known the trick and are seen on the verge of revealing it. Someone must be tempering with that money in the Central Bank or else there is no money in it at all. Which country pays her civil servants thrice a year?
Even Syria does not pay her civil servants so! Ukraine does not pay her civil servants so! Democratic Republic of the Congo does not pay her civil servants so! Unless the type of war in South Sudan is a special one where the leaders eat public money in the name of bringing the war to an end.
Does it kill, to tell the truth? It does not kill. And even if it kills, which death is better than which death? Someone dying of hunger, and someone being killed because of telling the truth are buried in the same soil. None of them is taken to heaven unburied. Someone who died of hunger is never risen on account that he did not tell the government the truth.
Now that we have the new Minister of Finance unless the presidency has become too satiated to an extent a bundle of SSP could not enter its stomach, otherwise, he would win the rest of the relieved ministers. What would the minister do alone? What would the minister do amid being told to hold on by the presidency?
But anyway, who knows the God of the presidency has become tired and that, the new Minister of Finance is a sign of God of the civil servants taking over? Who actually knows the new Minister of Finance is the smile that the civil servants and soldiers have been longing for? Who knows Jesus Christ has finally arrived? Who exactly knows? Civil servants should abandon questioning the identity of someone appointed and set eyes on whether that person will deliver services or not. What matters is the service delivery.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.