Sometimes, people are forced to laugh even when the situation does not need laughing.
People tasked with the responsibility to lead the country, run here and there, looking for the solution to the problem. Some of them, to a joking extent, kneel down in front of people, begging for peace. Others, to a crazy extent, use to hire foreign experts to fix what is bothering the country.
Leaders do not completely know they are the problem that they fail to solve. It could be that they do not know it completely or it could be that they are pretending. In either case, there is always an end to everything. A hyena is said to be the most gluttonous animal, but there is time it gets satisfied. A monarch rules for life, but there is time he can step down, maybe due to poor health conditions. Everything has an end.
Leaders go uphill, looking for all it takes to fix South Sudan, but they miss the solution downhill here. Indeed, every system needs fixing in South Sudan. The financial system is completely deranged due to rampant corruption. Who comes from abroad to tell officials to indulge in corruption? No one. The same South Sudanese who work in financial institutions are the same South Sudanese who carry away public money as if it was printed for them.
So, why would the heads of financial institutions fly abroad to look for a solution to the economic crisis? If they truly want to curb the crisis, they should apprehend any official who diverts public money so that the money flows to the Central Bank uneaten.
International ties are standing on one leg. The other leg is amputated by hungry diplomats who sell their own interests instead of selling the interest of South Sudan wherever they are sent to. So, what could foreign countries do? They put a question mark on the diplomatic relations of South Sudan until when it is improved.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not admit that its diplomats are the major cause of the challenges it is facing. Instead, it wastes another lump sum of money on training and sending new diplomats to where they are destroying international relations further. The problem facing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not foreign, it is native.
The Department of Migration, Passports and Civil Registry think the challenges facing them fall from heaven. Neither God nor his son, Jesus Christ is holding any office in the Ministry of Interior. All the offices are being held by South Sudanese. These South Sudanese are the ones who distribute the stamps for passports and national identity cards. They carry them in their pockets like pens and use them even outside the offices.
Some officers, those with high ranks, divide passport booklets among themselves and sell them for their own benefits. Then people say passport booklets are not available. Leaders should not go anywhere to look for a solution to the problem facing the Ministry of Interior. Both the problem and solution are within the ministry itself.
The SSPDF looks like it is not the army that liberated South Sudan. A thousand soldiers are in forests cutting down trees for charcoal. Another thousand soldiers have given up, returned home and lived a civilian life. An extra thousand soldiers have ventured into anything they see can make them put food on their tables, including transfer to other units, such as National Security Service, Police service, Wildlife and so on.
The problem is that commanders eat food aid and salaries of soldiers plus a lack of other welfare stuff. The SSPDF is its own problem. There is no need to fly abroad to look for the solution, the solution is within the army there. The same thing applies to every public or private institution, whether at the national or state level.
The major problem facing every institution is financial constraint. But the overall problem is the individualisation of funds meant for operating an institution. And who individualizes those funds? It is the same leaders decrying financial constraints. So, why would leaders fool people by pointing fingers overseas, instead of pointing fingers at themselves?
Leaders are the problem facing South Sudan. And the solution is not with Joe Biden, Putin, Xi Jinping, Emmanuel Macron, or King Charles, the solution is with Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit and Dr. Riek Machar Teny. When they say and implement “enough is enough” to war, corruption and tribalism, South Sudan will rise and stand on her own feet.
Thanks for reading “Sowing The Seed Of Truth”.