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Dear Pam,
Like Adiok, I also have interest in returning home. Here is my email address: dyiec@hotmail.com and will discuss more later about my educational background and interest in energy industry in south sudan.
Deng |
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Dear Jacob: thanks for sharing the story of Botswana. It makes me want to visit there and see how they do things.
Ibeny |
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Where Are the Dollars GoSS?
Deng Mulwal
In his address of the Second Forum for Sudanese Media Professionals Abroad, Presidential Advisor, Dr. Ghazi Salah Addeen revealed that GoSS which is representing the SPLM received more than $6 billion since the signature of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement four years ago.
Dr. Ghazi was right when he questioned about the whereabouts of that amounts in the light of the deteriorating economic and security situations in the South.
It was astonishing to know that there is no auditor general in the South, together with the absence of the legislative monitoring.
It goes without saying that corruption is considered the first cause hampering development in South Sudan. The high salaries, illusory or ghost names on payrolls and smuggling of money abroad through coffins were the means followed in practicing corruption which dragged South Sudan into the financial crisis.
Following the spread of corruption, GoSS has last March endorsed an act empowering a control commission to investigate hundreds of corruption complaints. That commission, which has been set in 2006, has not been vested with investigation powers until last March, three years after it has been established.
According to anti-corruption commission chairman they received hundreds of complaints from the frustrated public, and that they will focus on ten cases, some involving suspects, others violations of regulations, but the commission is still facing major challenges, notable of which is putting its hands on documented evidence as there is difficulty in obtaining them.
The commission refrained from publishing names of those convicted of corruption because they were advised that such was risky.
The share of GoSS from the oil revenue in the year 2007 amounted to $1 billion at a time GoSS is suffering deficit due to high expenditure in salaries and wages which the GoSS failed to cover.
How come the Unity State government has 100 advisors and in the Presidential Palace there are only 12!
Isn't it strange that the salary of the Undersecretary in GoSS is SDG18 thousand whilst the salary of the minister is SDG12 thousand!
In the news, an Australian bank revealed that most of the transmissions to it are from South Sudan!
Finally, the question which will be repeated by the Southern Sudan citizens is where are the dollars? What do the GoSS Minister of Finance, his undersecretary and directors general who receive the remittance of the oil money from the Central treasury monthly know about the disappearances of these large sums of money? What answers will they give in the forthcoming investigation of GoSS for the unaccountability of 6b Dollars?
GoSS is urged to take remedial measures to bring back the smuggled dollars to use it in providing the basic services to South Sudan people who feel that after the peace they were as if they were jumping from the frying pan of the civil war into the fire of the corruption within the GoSS.
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All,
I am overwhelmed with good info here. Don't know where to begin, let me just write away.
Pam,
Let the winning smile carry the day:) And thanks for the database thing. Please add me in (jokgai@hotmail.com)on a wait and see basis. I am currently in my fourth year of bachelor of electrical engineering. As you know, the situation of our country makes us activists and everything when we ought to be "technical people" so I would be interested in the oil sector reforms and/or technical aspects of it.
Charles,
The kids are listening - see you got a huge platform for modern storytelling!
Adiok,
It is sure not fun to be broke:) I would exactly do what you said: get something before you go. And you don't have to be an engineer to work in the oil sector - there are probably 50% non-engineering employees in the sector. In our case, all we need is a winning team. A team that is efficient. A team that gets the job done. That is it!
Jacob/Laura,
Norway is a very curious country in a way that they have a lot to learn from. The Norwegians stood with South Sudanese firmly during the war, running hospitals, schools and providing food. I owe both my primary and secondary education to them. So wouldn't it be great if we borrow from their success in oil management?
Cheers to the weekend!
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I think this discussion is still most relevant for the New Republic - one factor we seem to forget is the human one - I was a very good friend and colleague of the former At-Gen of Botswana, later the Chief Justice, before he died. He negotiated the diamond agreements with the external mining companies and marketing companies - at the time he had the support of a special UN unit on how to negotiate with multinationals - it no longer exists. Not only having competent expertise behind him, he had an honesty that only angels could have conferred on him - I loved his humour and even more his steadfastness. We talked a lot about his childhood as a cow and goat herder who happened to be just as good at school as he was taking care of his herds. Put in simple words, he could not be bribed! Not sure how a people are blessed with such human beings - why is a Mandela or a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King not born in other countries? Maybe in Botswana it the history of their chiefs who always displayed a courage, solidarity and independence plus a desire to be educated so that they could not be taken advantage of - you know the history of how they convinced the Queen Victoria to go against her political advisors about uniting Bechuanland land with South Africa - they were farsighted and accountable to their tribes. They later had to deal with having an arch enemy on their borders during the apartheid years. Fazit -we may need a combination of genuine expert support like how to negotiate with oil companies, sheer stubborn honesty and learning from a model of nonpartisan chieftaincy beholden to its people and involving them in negotiations. Margareta. |
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