South Sudan: Lifting off with the flag
* Article
* Comments (4)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
*
*
*
*
By John A. Akec
July 12, 2011 — On the eve of the declaration of South Sudan
independence, namely on July 8th 2011, and as the nascent nation was
preparing to receive its guests in its capital city, Juba; history was
being made in the far away land of America. In Florida and from
Kennedy’s Space Centre, the Atlantis space shuttle was being launched
for the last time to mark the end of 30-year US Space Shuttle
Programme. And as I watched the launch of Atlantis on the TV at home,
and as the clock counted down to the launch, my mind wondered off to
reflect on our nation that was to about be borne the following day. I
found many inspiring analogies and connections between the launch of
the space shuttle, Atlantis, and the birth of the 193rd United Nation
member, the Republic of South Sudan. This article is about sharing
these thoughts with my readers. There are a few differences, though,
that will be pointed out.
A space shuttle is a complex cutting-edge technology that has been
championed and excelled by the United States’ main space agency, the
National Aeronautic Space Agency (NASA), since its launch in April
1981. In fact, the Programme conception dates back as far as the
historic Apollo Moon Landing in 1969. The Space Shuttle fleet is
comprised of 6 vehicles (technically referred in NSAS’ speak as
orbiters), namely Discovery, Endeavour, Challenger, Atlantis,
Columbia, and Enterprise. In the 30-year history of America’s Space
Shuttle Programme, the shuttles carried out 135 missions, flew over
870 million Kilometers, took some 335 astronauts into space at cost of
US$ 209 billion, created hundreds of thousands of jobs across America;
delivered communications satellites, scientific investigation
equipment, and deep space probe telescopes into Earth’s orbit; created
advanced engineering technologies with many spin offs and applications
that have greatly benefited mankind and saved lives; improved air
travel safety; and deepened our understanding of the universe. Beside
financial cost above, 14 precious astronaut lives were lost in 30
years. More lives could have been lost had it not been due to the
ingenuity of NASA scientists and fine engineers, backed up by generous
financial resources from the nation and the unwavering political
commitment from the very top of the US Administration.
NASA is ending the Space Shuttle Programme to find alternative means
of sending equipment and astronauts into space. And so this will be
the last for Atlantis before retiring to space science museum. Like
all other shuttles, Atlantis shuttle and its boosters contain some 2.5
million moving parts and hundreds of scientists and engineers sitting
in front of giant control panels that monitor and display shuttle
vital variables at every moment of its flight. Each moving part of the
shuttle is wired up to computer system that ensures every component is
functioning before final launch command is issued. And when that
happens, it is "all system go!" It takes months and weeks of rehearsal
by astronauts, preparation, and meticulous planning by all concerned
because much is at stake. Here, failure is not an option.
So is it with launching of our new independent state of South Sudan.
The new state must be made to work. Although some failure is expected
and, indeed inevitable, it but must be minimized. Like space shuttle
programme that was inspired by President Kennedy vision to land first
man on the moon, the Republic of South Sudan is the realization of a
vision by the Patriarchs of South Sudan struggle. It was achieved at
cost of 2 million of lives and unaccounted for amount of wealth and
property. It took half century of struggle, engaged hundreds of
thousands of citizens and various global actors at different levels
and capacities, demanded commitment and perseverance to get to the
point where South Sudan finds itself at the moment (free as bird,
unshackled by will of man save its own!), a new nation fully ready to
serve its citizens!
So like Atlantis, the raising of South Sudan’s flag was the equivalent
of countdown to launch. Hence in theory, it should have been ’all
system go!’ And if we are honest, we need to admit that it was not
that simple for the birth of the Republic of South Sudan to just pick
and go. This is because of various reasons, some of which are
excusable to varying degree. While we can trust mechanical and
electronic artifacts that make up the 2.5 million parts in shuttle and
boosters to deliver at the touch of a button, we could not say the
same thing exactly about human resources which make up for moving
parts in the government of the world’s newest country. Humans, by
their very nature can forget, can be incompetent, may lack experience,
or do not always obey order in a way mechanical elements of the
shuttle would do. Here ’ready to go’ means the nation is fully ready
to deliver services the citizens need on day to day basis such as
keeping security, having electricity to light homes, availability of
running water, installation of radar to watch our borders and skies,
payment of workers’ wages on time etc.
In South Sudan’s ’launch’, there might have been too many teething
problems to contend with. For example, by coincidence or by design,
many flights from Khartoum to the Southern cities were grounded on
technical grounds at the time when demand was the highest. As a
result, the fair of air tickets between Khartoum and Southern cities
doubled or tripled in last few months in the run up to Independence
Day. What went wrong? We may ask. Whose business to protect its
citizens from mass exploitation or deliberate economic persecution
wherever they are in the world?
Next, the central government of Sudan issued an order to treat
Southern banks as foreign banks, therefore demanding the existence of
a correspondence bank in order to allow money transfer between
Northern and South Sudan and the Republic of Southern Sudan, a measure
that will cause untold hardship to over a million South Sudanese
citizens in the North. If the Republic of South Sudan is not yet to
offer unimpeded banking services on the next day of independence, then
it is going to be easier to send money from Khartoum to London than to
Juba. Are we ready for this or do we have long answers?
Also, when the North prevented fuel transportation from North to the
South, the fuel prices rocketed in the South. Could we have foreseen
this coming our way? Luckily, today we read in the newspapers that
South Sudan is going to launch its own currency beginning from 18th
July 2011. Hats off for that one, Mr. Deng Athorbe, Malok Aleng and
your staff! This will counter recent measures in Khartoum that would
treat transfers from South Sudan as from a foreign bank despite the
initial plan to use Sudanese pounds for the next 6 months in the
South. It would have meant buying the Sudanese pound twice – at the
origin and at the destination. A double lost for citizens of the
South.
While using the Atlantis analogy in the birth of our nation would be
like comparing apples and oranges, we should make no mistake about the
fact that many well tested engineering principles that have been
successfully applied to design of tanks, oil refineries, and space
shuttles in a way that ensures their smooth launch and operation, can
also be applied to great effect to design a functioning government
department, national economy, army logistic system, computer network,
city transportation system, or even the whole government apparatus of
a country so that things function smoothly and seamlessly in the
shortest time possible. It is worth mentioning that a number of World
Bank pundits have recently predicted that is going to take 20 years
for South Sudan to have a functioning government. However, this author
believes that by applying methods and tools of systems engineering, we
can shrink this time to mere 3 or 4 years.
Systems engineering approach that was developed by the military during
World War II and later perfected by space and manufacturing industry
in US and Europe, emphasizes the necessity of taking a total view of
design of organizations and hardware systems. Namely the whole is more
than the sum of its parts. In other words, it is not about optimizing
the output from sub-systems, but rather that of maximizing the whole
system performance.
Thus the flag is up. The issues at stake are complex. Are we ready to
go as a total system? If the answer is no, my question is why not?
Instead of resting on the dire predictions of World Bank experts or
importing civil servants from East Africa to fix our systemic
problems, we can do well by first putting our in-house skills to good
use. In Academics and Researchers Forum for Development, a think-tank
and an advocacy group, we are more than ready to tackle such national
challenges head on. Not with emotions but with skills and
professionalism. So have a go, and give us a call.
The author is vice chancellor of University of Northern Bahr El Ghazal
in South Sudan, and chairperson of Academics and Researchers Forum for
Development, a think-tank and advocacy group formed by the South
Sudanese academics and researchers. The writer edits a blog:
www.JohnAkecSouthSudan.blogs.... To get in touch, write to:
[email protected].
--
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.
