Foreign workers in Juba, are there no southerners? BY: Bullen Bol, JUBA
JULY 15/2011, SSN; Dear readers, the purpose of this article is to sensitize our government and the entire Southern Sudanese of what is currently going on as far as employment is concerned, so that they may take pertinent actions in response. Having been to several hotels here is Juba, I had detected that hotel owners had employed their own people and some from other countries like Ethiopians, Kenyans, Ugandans, etc... than Southern Sudanese as such. The immediate questions that come in any concerned citizen’s mind is that, what is the benefit of these (hotels) in Juba here?; don’t we have people who can work as waitresses or waiters in Southern Sudan? Are the hotels’ occupations very hard jobs that our young girls and boys can’t do? If we have a work force, then why should we not employ them in these businesses? Although foreign investors help in developing the areas in which they operate and raise government revenues through taxes, the world wide overriding reasons to why foreign investors are allowed to operate in any country are to provide employment opportunities to the citizens of that country and avail goods and services at reasonable prices to the people. But now you can’t find a citizen of this country working in such a place apart from being gate-keepers. Furthermore, I support employment of indigenous workers other than foreign workers because the latter has the issue of profit repatriation which all of us are aware of. Apart from the hotels’ occupations that are being dominated by the foreigners, there are also other works like building, bodabodas ’(motorcycles’) riders among other manual labor jobs that do not need educational skills and that our people can do well but you can still find few citizens engaged in such activities. What I have detected is that, our people need government occupations other than manual labor and this explains why various manual labors jobs are taken up by foreigners. Allow me to give you a simple example from Europe, when the first world war was fought, the Germany was fined heavily for having caused the first world war by victor powers headed by France, and because Germany could raised that money within her economy, she opted for a loan from United states so as to pay the money. When Germany was given that money, her economy did not benefit from that money because the money was not spent within the economy. Southern Sudan may not benefit from her oil revenues if her citizens do not take up all jobs regardless of their nature. In conclusion therefore, I suggest the following recommendations to my readers and our government: replacement of all the foreign workers especially in the above areas, establishment of Microfinance institutions to avail loans to the citizens who may lack capital for buying and carrying on the businesses similar to what foreigners are operating. Besides, entrance should be denied to all those who want to operate small scale businesses and only given to those who want to operate on large scale businesses. Vocational training schools should be opened in all tens states (polytechnic schools) so as to equip them with skills necessary to meet our new nation’s sensitization of our illiterate about how and what businesses they should take on. This can be done through hard talk on local radios and newspapers like the best selling newspaper, 'Citizen.' In order for all these to succeed, the government of Republic of Southern Sudan must make sure that all those found guilty of corruption are brought to book regardless of their positions they hold, this will frighten those are planning to steal the public funds, and if that is not done all the efforts of our government will be useless thus we shall not experience the economic growth and development in an expedited manner. Corruption can be reduced through making sure that all the public servants’ accounts in foreign banks are checked, this can be done by encouraging foreign banks abroad to reveal the accounts of public servants of G.O.S.S that they may have. The insecurity which seems to be a threat here needs to be eradicated through peaceful settlements with rebels and the process of reconciliation should take its course quickly since the element of insecurity can act as an impediment to foreign investors and economic growth and development at large. More crucially, Republic of Southern Sudan being a new nation, need decision making body in the government of Republic of Southern Sudan to analyze the successful development plans that various African countries had formulated and proven successful when they had just emerged from war. The source of that information would be World Bank; this will enable our government to set sound developmental plans that will see us develop in a more expedited manner. The writer is Southern Sudanese student and can be reached at [email protected] Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author(s) and do not represent those of the website. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
