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By Zechariah Manyok Biar
August 3, 2011 — The President of the Republic of South Sudan issued a
decree on August 1, 2011 for the transformation and reconstitution of
the National Legislative Assembly of the Republic of South Sudan. Now
that we are in a new country, the Assembly will have a lot to do to
transform the country to meet international standards and to deliver
quality services to its people.
In the effective delivery of services to the citizens of the Republic
of South Sudan, the question that the leaders will have to ask
themselves is what style they will use to take towns to people
according to the vision of our late leader Dr. John Garang de Mabior.
They will have their own answers, but my answer is that the best way
for quality service delivery is for all our leaders to know what their
special obligations are.
In the Government of Southern Sudan, we seemed to have vague
definition of what it meant to be a leader. We seemed to believe that
being a leader meant that you were a national figure without
specifying what it meant to be a national figure. This confusion
applied to our sense of national identity too.
Now is the time to put things right. Being a leader means that you
have limits to your obligation. If you are a Member of Parliament
(MP), then you have the obligation for your constituency and that does
not mean you hate other constituencies. When you are appointed as a
minister, you have obligation for people under your ministry within
the borders of the Republic of South Sudan. For example, if you are
the Minister of Health, then your obligation is limited to health. You
have nothing to do with road construction, but that does not mean you
do not like roads in the country. If you are the President, then you
have the obligation for the people within the borders of South Sudan,
not that you hate people outside the borders of South Sudan.
However, you can expand your obligation as president to suffering
people outside your borders. For example, Acholi is divided between
South Sudan and Uganda. The President of South Sudan is obliged to
take care of the Acholis within the borders of South Sudan. But if
Acholis in Uganda are suffering beyond the capacity of the Ugandan
government and the government of South Sudan has the means, it can
provide a limited assistance to them.
Now the problem comes in when one narrows the obligation, leaving out
part of the people under his or her obligation. Parents have special
obligation for their children. Nobody would expect them to take care
of other people’s children at the expense of their children. On the
other hand, even if parents have more children than what their
resources can cater for, they should not take care of some children
and leave out the rest to struggle on their own, especially when all
of them are too young to care for themselves.
The reason why we took arms against the government in Khartoum was
because one president after another from Khartoum narrowed his
national obligation over many years to focus on northerners and their
welfare only, leaving the rest of the country uncared for as if they
were outside the borders of Sudan. The same thing can anger people in
the Republic of South Sudan if our president cares for one part at the
expense of other parts.
But such anger could be misplaced if a particular Member of Parliament
is taking care of his/her constituency. MPs are not supposed to worry
about other constituencies because their obligations are limited to
their respective constituencies. They only expand their obligations
when they are deliberating on national laws and interests. But they
still pay attention to how such a national law would affect their
individual constituencies.
Some people that I talk to sometimes mix up tribalism with special
obligation to constituencies. They say that MPs who focus on their
constituencies are tribalists. But the reality is that constituencies
do not suit tribes. Small tribes, for example, can be combined into
one constituency. The bigger ones like Dinka and Nuer can be divided
into very many constituencies. That is why tribalism does not fit
under this special obligation.
MPs are the voices of their constituencies. They have special
obligation to represent them very well. Leaders who have national
obligations should not narrow their obligations to their tribes or
regions. Better understanding of these differences, I think, may
result in better service delivery to our citizens.
Zechariah Manyok Biar, BA. Edu., MACM, MSSW. He can be reached at
[email protected]
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