Time to do the talk or time to do the work in South Sudan? BY: Nyamakth D. Arok, CANADA
JULY 30/2011,SSN; Seriously, come on, people! Let's be sincere on how we have been taking care of our beloved nation since 2005 when South Sudan was handed over to SPLM leadership. As an autonomy, we all know that South Sudan was granted total control of its affairs; and with the share of her resources, it should have at lest built something (a national infrastructure which should make us all proud by now, either tarmac highway No.1 which connects all three regions of South Sudan or railway tracks even without a train to run, buying the train should be the topic now after independence). Then, our government would have a right to blame citizens of not doing their part in nation building. It was really pathetic to hear our president blaming people of South Sudan for not being productive but spent all their time playing cards or drinking alcohol and so on. Well, it isn't that what frustrated citizens do especially after paying high price with the lives of their loved ones in return of a better life, then suddenly things turned out differently. I would be very glad to hear my president after independence saying "my fellow citizens there is the highway built, ready to use, go take advantage of it to transport goods around the country and soon the railway will be put to use as well, stop wasting time playing dice/cards, but starting repairing your livelihood and that way we can build the nation together." I am sure not alone, many people would be happy to hear something like that at this moment not 'we will be planning to build roads'. I totally agreed with my fellow citizen/brother, Isaiah Abraham, who claimed that our GOSS/ROSS should narrow its national priorities in his letter from Juba posted on this website. However, I would like to emphasis on how relieving it is when government planned ahead of time before its citizens start asking questions on what next or why my kids are not getting this or that. As we all know how far South Sudan lagged behind in term of everything in the region leave alone Africa as large, more than 3 quarters of population with no access to clean drinking water, proper health care services, families faces food shortage every time especially in countryside. When it comes to secondary needs, the last six years has shown terrible neglect to security situation in some provinces of South Sudan, negligent to farming sector and unfair minimum wages to public employees which all the time threatened teachers, nurses, etc, to quit their positions and look for other alternatives to be able to feed their families. The GOSS/ROSS should learn from shortage of fuel they experienced in Juba when the North closed its border to South in May and still is, thanks to local NGOs who donated their own reserves plus chunk of public money given to Uganda for emergency fuel supply to South Sudan. Although people of South Sudan were experiencing multiple challenges such as high food prices, most in black markets, violence in South Kordofan, S. Blue Nile, which always threatened security of Upper State, Northern Bhar el Ghazel and especially the invasion of Abyei which caused more lives and properties than before. The next thing I noticed is that the leadership of SPLM party was not more worried about the above as it was about the rejection of national constitution which still is regarded by many as unfair in many ways. I was surprised when president Kiir spent almost 2 hrs complaining on SSTV about other parties presenting their versions of constitution for the nation-to-be during parliament's final review of constitution meanwhile people are dying in Abyei and Nuba Mountains. Now that self-favored constitution is passed, it was not surprising to see president Kiir happy than ever to kiss the disputed constitution cover after been sworn in during independence day as president of new ROSS. This means to be in charge of millions if not billions of dollars of nation's oil money/nation resources. If one could ask, what has been done with 30billion given to South Sudan in the last six years and this calculation is based on information put out by international media that half million barrels is pumped out daily from South Sudan wells, this excluded border areas in Unity state claimed by North as theirs. This numbers was confirmed early this year when Dr. Lual Deng, minister of oil in national government announced that the country need to increase its oil output from 500,000 to 600,000 barrels a day during national budget conference in Khartoum last year. This calculation also counted $80.00/barrel, 250,000 barrels a day for South Sudan. Instead, of $100.00/barrel as oil skyrocketed in international market since 2008. It should be a time to put GOSS ZERO tolerance policy for corruption to work, so that whoever seeks office in government for his/her own interest rather than national interest should be held accountable when he/she breaks the law. Otherwise nothing is going to change, everyone will be going to South Sudan to scoop as much national resources as she/his can, and this included diasporas, being one of people who witnessed diasporas with their relatives working in the government returning back to Canada with chunk of money from South Sudan. Most of these people move away from the Sudanese community deep into White community in other cities to avoid been questioned on where he/she got such money when they buy these big houses. I am so positive that everything will change one day, one time in South Sudan. Our nation will be great as mentioned in the Holy bible, and I personally believed in people of South Sudan as hardworking people. we have experienced this every where people of South Sudan are, they work hard to provide their relatives back home and take care of themselves in foreign countries. Nevertheless, people need to be involved to be part of government policies, people have to claim their rights to know what their government is doing and how it do it. Transparency is everything. COMMENTS, PLEASE CLICK HERE 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. 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