Getting tough on the Weak 'unveils' Kiir's internal troubles
BY: Joana Adams, SOUTH SUDAN
NOV. 23/2011, SSN; Over the last few weeks, this country has witnessed
extraordinary events like the arrest of the two young journalists, now
released without formal charges. The arrest of the journalists
overshadowed other important matters like the presentation of the
audited accounts of GoSS to Parliament, for the period 2005-2006 and
other issues. Just for the record, it is important to mention the
“capture” of Mualana/Advocate Peter Abderhaman Sule, a former GoSS
minister and leader of the opposition party United Democratic Front
(UDF).
No absolute privacy
The arrests of journalists Peter Ngor and Dengdit Ayok of Destiny
newspaper was over the publishing of a strongly worded objection to
the marriage of Adut Kiir to an Ethiopian immigrant. Their release is
welcomed and must be a big relief to their families, friends and all
those who campaigned for their release including foreign governments
and agencies. Apart from being slightly xenophobic, the journalists
seemed to have expressed views which struck accord with many
Southerners. But President Kiir, his ministers and security agents
had different views for he had this to say:
“ Media freedom should not be used to the extent of attacking
personalities. In any case that will be defamation…. The journalists
will after investigations be handed over to the police… To appease his
audience the President lamented, It is not a crime for a lady to get
married to the man of her choice…. Why are you now complaining yet
none of you applied to marry my daughter?”
The problem for the President and by extension to his family is that,
they are not just ordinary personalities - they are the nation’s First
family - and therefore whatever they do will legitimately attract
public interests. If the journalists have overstepped their
boundaries and are have committed libel, this should have been
established in a court of law, other than illegally arresting and
detaining them. While in security custody, these individuals should
have been treated as innocent until proven guilty. This did not
happen. They were physically beaten, and subjected to degrading
treatment.
For a long time, the government has been evasive about media laws and
has forced journalists to operate in a legal vacuum. If there is no
media law, which laws have these journalists broken? Even if there is
a law, it is unlikely that these journalists would stand a fair trial
because their arrest had been politicised and the judiciary which is
headed by a close kinsmen of the President cannot be said to be an
independent institution. The arrests of these journalists and that of
James Okuk before it, raise pertinent issues about the freedom of
thoughts, speech and expression. A dangerous pattern of government
onslaught on the media and freedom of speech is emerging. This is in
spite of the fact that our human rights and fundamental freedoms are
guaranteed in our Transitional Constitution, 2011 as quoted below:
Art 24. (1) Every citizen shall have the right to the freedom of
expression, reception and dissemination of information, publication,
and access to the press without prejudice to public order, safety or
morals as prescribed by law.
(2) All levels of government shall guarantee the freedom
of the press and other media as shall be regulated by law in a
democratic society.
This article does not only guarantee our freedom of speech and
publication, but commits all levels of government to doing so. But
instead, we have a government that is not only negligent but is
violating its own Constitution.
Secondly, it is important to differentiate between President Kiir as a
private individual and the President and his family as the nation's
first family and therefore legitimate object of public scrutiny. By
opting for the top office in the land, the President has traded his
personal privacy and the privacy of his family for power and
privileges of the state. Unlike the rest of us, the president and his
family do not have absolute privacy any more, contrary to what his
ministers would want him to believe. He will only redeem his freedom
when he leaves office or is voted out.
By quickly arranging for a wedding ceremony for his pregnant daughter,
he has done what most loving fathers would have done. However he has
gone a little further by breaking with traditions and presumably lying
to the Church. I do not know the position of Dinka tradition on this,
but I know in most Southern tribes, the marriage of a pregnant girl is
delayed until she safely delivers. To organise a church wedding
ceremony for a pregnant daughter, apart from being a cover up is
wrong. As a regular church goer, the President knows that every
Christian must not bear false witness. I wonder what the Vatican
would say about this.
These young people spoke what every brother would have said. And this
should not surprise anyone because Adut Kiir is the daughter of their
president. They would have desired the whole nation to celebrate with
the Kiir family, the wedding of the first daughter, even to a
foreigner as long as it wasn’t hidden away in Rejaf but was honourably
celebrated at St Theresa’s Cathedral in Kator where the president is a
regular worshipper. This would have given the citizens the chance to
line up from the gates of the republican palace through Malakia and
Konyo konyo to Kator Cathedral. What a joyous national occasion it
would have been!
Incidentally, it is not just the President who does not have absolute
privacy, but all national constitutional post holders and their
immediate families. Your lives and the lives of your immediate
families are legitimate matters of national concerns and scrutiny
because you are enjoying the comfort and privileges which the nation
is paying for. This is the price of leadership.
Report of the Auditor General
The long awaited audited financial report of GoSS albeit partial, is
out. For the first time in the history of GoSS, it is refreshing to
hear accounting terminologies being used. The Auditor General has
given his verdict: in 2005-2006 alone, a total of 1.3 billion US
dollars cannot be accounted for, many questions remain outstanding and
more is to come. What next? When the Development Partners got tough
and requested Salva Kiir Mayardit to disclose names of 13 people in
government who have stolen and banked millions in their private bank
accounts abroad, there was total silence. If the disclosure of the
Intiba newspaper is anything to go by, then the public has placed its
trust on the wrong people.
A lot of us knew that the disclosure of the World Bank was only the
tip of the iceberg, since it specifically referred to donor money and
not the oil revenue. For over 6 years Pagan Amum and other SPLM
demagogues have been banging tables pointing accusing fingers at our
traditional enemies in Khartoum, for not remitting all the 50% oil
money as per the CPA, little was said about how GoSS was actually
managing the amount being received. And the public got sucked into
these stories of lies and deceit.
According to reporter Waakhe Simon Wudu, JUBA, 04 November 2011
[Gurtong], the South Sudan Auditor General, Stephen Wondu, told the
South Sudan National Assembly that:
1. US$122.6 million was used to purchase vehicles which cannot be trace.
2. That they could not explain legality of applying US$80.6 million
as an outstanding grant from GoNU.
3. That Ministry of Finance reported the use of US$12million for
construction of the Aweil-Miriam road but the knowledge of the use of
this fund was denied by both the Sepaker Wani Igga and the minister of
roads.
4. That the financial statements of the GoSS accounts omitted a
commitment made on 5 March 2006 of US$288.0 million in the form of
bank guarantee for road works in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State by Eyat
Roads and Bridges again the knowledge of this was denied by the
Speaker and the Minister of Roads and Transport.
5. That US$7.4million was transferred in the financial year 2006 to
BNP Paribas Private Bank, Geneva, not in the name of the GoSS.
6. That during the 2006 financial year, fifteen government
institutions did not submit payrolls, nominal rolls, staff dossiers
and other salary related records despite numerous requests by the
Ministry of Finance, which has led to the unaccounted US$440.7million.
7. Seven GoSS institutions; Finance, Public Service,
Telecommunication, Environment, Local Government Board, Relief and
Human Rights Commissions are reported to have exceeded their approved
annual budgets without any legal authorisation from the then Southern
Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA), totalling US$189.5million.
You can do your own sums but the amount of money which has gone
missing in just two years is breath taking. But that is not all.
There are fundamental policy issues involved here. How could
ministers, overspend their budgets without parliamentary approval?
Now that the names of the offending ministries have been released,
what is Parliament going to do about it? Who regulates the ministry
of Finance as the custodian of our finances? Could it be that in all
these irregular financial transactions, someone or a group of people
in high places should be held accountable?
In spite of these spectacular disclosures, the Assembly is still
dithering as to what to do. At the time when he should show
leadership in Parliament, the Speaker of the August House Hon James
Wani Igga, is nowhere to be heard. The best the Assembly can come up
with is, formation of a Committee to investigate further, instead of
moving a motion of no confidence in the President and his government.
What will this or any new Committee do which has not been done by the
Audit Chamber? How will publishing of names of corrupt officials help
to bring criminals to justice? And how would shedding tears however
genuine, exonerate the Assembly from its monumental failure to hold
ministers accountable?
There used to be stories in Juba that when MPs became too inquisitive
about the liberty of the executives to spend ministry budget’s which
created envy and resentment, the executives came up with ingenious way
to keep the law makers sweet. They poured money into the Nile
Commercial Bank and Ivory bank which could be accessed as loans by
disgruntled MP’s and other officials who did not manage budgets. The
result: a lot of monies were loaned to privileged customers including
MPs and commanders but the terms and conditions of these loans were
never honoured which resulted to the banks becoming insolvent until
recapitalised by GoSS.
Secondly, to satisfy the demand of MPS’s who were more development
oriented, ministers tricked them by developing a scheme called
Constituency development funds (CDF). MPs in consultation with their
constituencies were supposed to identify projects local communities
would benefit from. Some constituencies choose, schools other chose
health centres roads, etc. However, not surprisingly, there have been
complaints that some MPs’ did not use these funds for the purposes for
which they were intended. What was the line of accountability for
these funds? Why were these funds not integrated into state
development funds to be managed by the latter, as legitimate
development authorities? Of course they didn’t suspect the catch.
When MPs wanted to hold ministers accountable for alleged
misappropriation of billions in the dura (grain) and other scandals,
they were swiftly reminded of the (CDF) funds they couldn’t account
for.
Therefore the report of the Auditor general is not surprising. What
is surprising is the headline stories of MP’s breaking down in tears.
If MPs were genuinely distraught about the magnitude of
misappropriation, the solution was not to weep like children in
playgrounds but to take action as community empowered representatives
or to resign. Evidently, ministers and others in charge of budgets
such as governors or senior commanders used these budgets as their
personal properties and stashed them into private bank accounts
abroad. Even if the oil dries up today, these people and their
children’s children up to the 4th generation will never experience
poverty again. They are forever financially protected no matter where
they migrate to live anywhere in the world.
Of nearly the 12 billion US dollars accrued in oil revenue over 6
years, less than 20% of these were allocated to the 10 states of
Southern Sudan but more than 80% consumed at the central government
mainly in forms of salaries and ghost salaries and other luxury
expenses. How many standard universities, roads and bridges could
these billions have built? Why should children be learning under
trees when billions of public funds are sitting in private accounts of
ministers and generals abroad? How can you be comfortable as leader,
when the schools in Juba or elsewhere in the South are not good enough
for your own children; or when the maternity wards in our hospitals
are not good enough for your wives to deliver in? The motto of
leaders should be: if something is not good enough for me or my
family, it is not good enough for the public.
Isn’t it unethical to jet off for treatment to Jordan, India, Nairobi,
Germany or South Africa when the children of common men and women die
of treatable diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea? Isn’t it
unethical when ministers keep more than three land cruisers, have 24
hours electricity and running water, when majority of families cannot
afford one decent meal a day? Where is the ethics of egalitarianism,
which not so long ago is the essence of our African culture, which
guided and sustained our communities? Should it be the World Bank yet
again to tell us about equitable resource distribution which was one
of the cornerstones of the CPA. How our leaders could get it so wrong
is truly bewildering, and to me this is nothing but systematic
economic genocide.
Turning on the Heat on Civil servants
This brings me to the pronouncement of Salva Kiir and some of his
ministers on the issues of civil service and civil servants. Like
someone who had suddenly woken out of deep anaesthesia, Mr. Kiir
announced a few weeks ago that that those civil servants, who had
resigned to contest elections in 2010, should refund to the treasury,
the salaries they have been receiving since “they illegally sneaked
back to work”. His fanatical supporters will press him to get tough
on the weak. First if there is any failure here, it is the failure of
his ministry of Public Service for not establishing proper employment
policies and procedures since 2005. Unfortunately the honourable lady,
who had reigned supreme in this ministry since 2007, recently resigned
or was dismissed whichever is the truth. Since 2005, the public has
been expressing concerns about irregular employment and appointments
practices in GoSS, but critics were denounced as being anti SPLM or
enemies of peace. GoSS, actively allowed ministers and SPLA
commanders to employ unqualified relatives and friends to lucrative
positions in spite of Public Service motto which presumably promotes:
service without fear or favour.
Initially the Coordination Council was blamed for employment of
unqualified personnel and for inflating pay rolls with ghost names
when it was merged with SPLM’s (CANS) Civil Administration of New
Sudan (CANS) in 2005. Now the survey commissioned by Hon Awut Deng,
has confirmed the popular belief: up to 65% of civil servants have no
relevant qualifications for the posts they are holding. So what
should be the best course of action? Employees might have falsified
their credentials, forged documents or were employed through family
connections, which are deplorable, but can ministers sincerely confess
that they had nothing to do with these fraudulent practices?
As suggested by the former Minister Awut Deng, there should be
comprehensive screening, but the goals of this screening should not be
to take vindictive actions against employees but to deploy these
people in appropriate positions and by sending the younger ones for
proper education and training. The older employees approaching
pensionable age, could be offered voluntary retirement package to
include financial incentives for starting small businesses in
commerce, animal husbandry or agriculture. This package can be paid
for by the looted funds once recovered. It would also be fair
considering that a lot of the commanders integrated as generals in the
armed, police, prisons and wildlife forces who would presumably not be
affected were illiterate and had no academic qualifications.
This would be a better way of maximising the use of our human
capital, and it would prevent any social unrest or political backlash.
No country can develop without skilled and professional civil
servants. Of course it is fundamentally important that we sort out
our public services and modernise it to deliver services in the 21st
century, it is equally important that we do so in a humane and
considered way. Falsification of academic credentials is as
fraudulent as embezzlement of millions and billions of public funds.
It would be good to prosecute those who have forged documents to get
employment but the President must not lose focus or sense of
priorities.
The priority for the government should be to prosecute those who are
responsible for the missing billions of public funds as per the
audited accounts and then clean up the public service. That the
President and ministers are stepping up the heat on civil servants at
a time when they cannot account for public funds which have gone
mission under their watch could be seen as an attempt to divert public
attention and to be seen to be getting tough on the weak. The
disclosure of individual finances and assets should be applicable to
all public servants including ministers, generals, and at all levels
of government starting from 2005 not 2011 as the president had said.
The question the authorities still have to address is will this
disclosure include funds in foreign accounts or not, if not why not??
Coming to the issue of the civil servants who resigned to contest
elections and allegedly sneaked back to work, what was the public
service regulation in place at the time? If the civil servants in
question had resigned, were their resignations accepted in writing
clearly terminating their employment with their respective ministries?
What of the President of the republic and other generals who were
also forced by the electoral laws to resign to contest elections but
continue to appear in military uniforms and bear military titles? No
one can voluntarily dismiss themselves from a job. That the President
assumes the role of the minister of public service soon after she
resigned or was dismissed, begs the question about possible power
struggle between the two over this and other critical public service
issues. Whichever is the case, the President cannot take the liberty
to avenge his anger on innocent public servants. If there was no
Public Service Act, at the time, these people have not broken any law.
And therefore cannot be punished in retrospect.
In South Sudan, most people who got top civil service jobs are
registered SPLM members and their participation in politics is
actively encouraged by the establishment. Looking beneath the
surface, the civil servants who were forced to resign before they
could contest elections were disaffected SPLM members who protested to
what they saw as unfair selection of candidates in the rigged
primaries. The second category of people who are being targeted must
be candidates of other political parties and are mainly middle level
civil servants who may paradoxically be the more qualified ones.
There is no universal rule which says that civil servants should not
express their views about government policies. This would be violating
their fundamental human rights and freedom of thoughts, speech and
expression. In other countries, ministers would lose their jobs for
victimising civil servants.
If academics, accountants, lawyers, teachers, doctors, engineers who
are all civil servants - since the government is the only employer in
the South -do not speak up about government policies in their areas of
expertise, then who will? Are our intellectuals supposed to be
passive recipients of products of foreign knowledge or should they be
active participants in the construction of their country? If the
President wants to dismiss those civil servants he said had resigned,
he needs to re-evaluate his position given the statistics that 65% of
civil servants are unqualified. Those who are qualified should be
allowed to continue to work to develop the nation until retirement age
or when there are qualified replacements.
With respect to refunding the salaries they have earned, this should
be challenged in court of law. Civil servants have employment rights;
those threatened should seek immediate advice from advocates or from
the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The amount of funds paid
out to civil servants in salaries is not comparable to the funds
extorted by politicians. Gen. Salva doesn’t want to bring his corrupt
minister’s and generals to account but wants to vent his anger and
frustration on those he perceives as weak. This president comes alive
only when he is punishing his people. One minute he is suspicious of
his governors’ the next minute he turns his guns against defenceless
civil servants. But no country in this world has developed without
the contribution of effective civil service. Civil servants don’t
need to be demonised but empowered to do their jobs efficiently and
effectively. It is critical thinking, innovation and industriousness
which developed the West and is now developing the East at an
accelerated rate. Closing the doors to critical thinking is
tantamount to intellectual and political genocide.
This onslaught on civil servants is a new political strategy to
silence civil servants after effectively silencing ministers and MP’s.
We cannot talk of multi-party democracy anymore because the President
chooses which parties should be in the opposition. He then absorbs
their leaders into government as ministers on the pretext of unity
government, where they are not allowed to criticise government
policies on the grounds that “they are in government”. In the
Transitional Constitution, the President has given himself
unprecedented powers, which makes him one the most powerful heads of
states in the world. Now we can see he is putting these powers into
practice.
The recent volatility is indicative of a government that is in
shambles. Creating public furore over reporters or getting tough on
the perceived weak is but deliberate attempt to divert public
attention from internal troubles of the king. These troubles will not
vanish into thin air, now that his attempt to strengthen his position
by bringing in George Athor has at least for now failed. A government
cannot indefinitely rule on the basis of personal likes or dislikes.
This government violates its own constitution. It has no
comprehensive development plan, or policy framework to regulate its
own institutions. It has misguided vision. And it has lost its sense
of priorities and moral legitimacy. On what basis is it ruling?
Joana Adams, RSS
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