What people see as 6, other people see it as 9. This is exactly how inflation is seen in South Sudan. Politicians are very funny people. When they see a cow, they call it a donkey. And when they see a donkey, they call it a cow. That is the doctrine of politics.
With this unending economic crisis, the citizens see it as a very dangerous problem that needs immediate action but politicians see it as a simple thing that can solve itself. This is because an economic crisis is a politician’s lucrative business that generates wealth for them and keeps them in power for long. Of course, who can fight for power when hungry? No one.
As we speak, the citizens are too hungry to think of power. What they think of is what to eat. In their own zones, politicians of South Sudan celebrate the ongoing inflation because the citizens are dying and that is exactly what they want. When talking in public, leaders of South Sudan say they are doing all it takes to control the economic crisis, but in actual sense, they are either doing nothing or working hard to increase it.
Every week, there is this fake thing they call “auctioning of dollars” to reduce the dollar rate and it has never yielded any positive results since they began it. If, indeed, 3 or so million USD are auctioned into this small market of Juba, it would make something significant about the dollar rate.
But the tragedy is that the officials concerned with auctioning give these dollars to their relatives in the black market to be sold at high prices. What happens here? The dollar rate either remains the same or even rises. This is pretence. Now, things have gone out of hand.
Prices have shot up and common people cannot afford to buy even one sandwich for their children. When they fall sick, they cannot afford to buy a tablet of paracetamol. It is very unfortunate that people are dying of hunger. No salary and the small money that comes from hustling cannot buy anything in the market. I think the government is tired of the citizens. It wants to sweep the citizens away so that the ones to inhabit South Sudan would be government officials and their relatives.
In countries where the government is for the people, the government provides the bread and the citizens look for the sauce. In South Sudan, it is a different story. The government does not provide bread, instead, it takes people’s bread and sauce. This situation is unbearable. Already, the streets are beginning to look empty. Hunger has begun confining people in houses. Three to four days later, if no intervention is made, I think South Sudan will remain government officials and their relatives only.
The common people are going to die of hunger. But is there anyone to bring a remedy? Definitely, no one. It looks like the citizens of South Sudan are seeking a solution from the ones benefitting from it. However cheap that solution is, they will never buy it because when they buy it, they will lose the benefits they get.
So, the chances of this economic crisis continuing for years are very high. All that should be done is to learn resilience and endurance. People say no condition is permanent. Yes, no condition is, indeed, permanent. Change will come like a blink of an eye. Things will improve. They will surely improve.
Thanks for reading “Sowing The Seed Of Truth”.