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The latest IGAD peace proposal cannot bring long lasting peace to South Sudan. But we should not blame IGAD but ourselves. Where is our own “good” South Sudanese peace proposal?
Power sharing should not be based on political parties or between the government and the rebels. At present, these bodies are not representative of all the people of South Sudan. After all, it was the concentration of power between two ethnic groups that led to polarization and clash. Had the Presidential Guard Unit (or Tiger Battalion) not being entirely or predominantly Dinka and Nuer, polarization would have been avoided. Any tensions that developed might have been defused by members of the unit from the other ethnic groups. Historically, a bi-polar system has been unstable and explosive (anywhere in the world, except during the era when major powers possess nuclear weapons).
South Sudan does not really have political parties with national membership. Hence, no political party, including the SPLM, is nationally representative. The SPLM appealed to most South Sudanese before independence because it was seen as the only credible party (with an army) that could liberate South Sudan from Khartoum, either through the transformation of the Old Sudan or by the separation of the South from the North. Once, South Sudan was freed from Khartoum, the SPLM became irrelevant to most South Sudanese. It is just being sustained/revived for power purposes. But this is not going to hold. It might plunge South Sudan into another tragedy. A political party should be formed by people with fairly common vision for the country, but not for the convenience of clinging or sneaking to power.
If the various factions of the SPLM were honest to South Sudan, they should have formed different political parties based on their ideologies and visions for the country- but not by just adding a hyphen to the SPLM. The SPLM had served its purpose of liberation. People worked under the SPLM, even if they had different ideologies, because of the goal of liberating South Sudan from Khartoum – people sacrificed their personal ideologies for the sake of liberating South Sudan from Khartoum.
Even the very name SPLM (Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement) is no longer relevant to South Sudan. We are no longer Sudanese, but South Sudanese. The people clinging to the name SPLM are now a government. They are no longer a movement.
IGAD and other international mediators are just trying to appease the warring parties because this is the only way they believe they can bring the fighting to stop. As much as they sympathize with the South Sudanese population, there is no way they can help the South Sudanese population without the fighting ending. They are not prepared to sacrifice the lives of their own soldiers to bring the war to an end if the South Sudanese “leaders” are not willing to care about their own people. Why must they (IGAD and other non-South Sudanese) sacrifice their soldiers? They have already sacrificed more than enough time and other resources to help us resolve our problems, but we continue to be arrogant, instead of being grateful; and yet we are the losers. We pretend to care for those we have already killed, but we go on killing more.
I do not understand why the government is unwilling to accept federalism, yet the recent conference of “ALL TRIBES” in Juba concurred on federalism. I believe that given our current divergent outlooks, each cultural group needs to be given some breathing space from the others for some years. Then through interactions in towns, economic projects, boarding schools, colleges, and universities, we will come to know and appreciate each other’s cultures. Overtime, ethnocentrism will decline. Our ordinary people are good, but a minority of our elites, from all ethnicities and regions, want to use their numbers to dominate others. They play on ethnic and regional sentiments. They are able to fool their gullible followers.
Power Sharing
Power-sharing should be based on administrative units. Given that the populations of Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria, and Upper Nile are roughly equal, positions in the national government should be allocated on the basis of one third for each region. Say we have twenty-one ministers, each region should have seven. Likewise for the distribution of deputy ministers.
States could be used as the basis for power and resource sharing. But Bahr el Ghazal has four states now while Equatoria and Upper Nile have three states each. Should we create two more states: one in Equatoria and another in Upper Nile? Should the former district of Akobo be added to the Greater Pibor Administrative Area to create a fourth state in Upper Nile; while the Equatorians should agree on the creation of a fourth state in Equatoria? Should this be done during the peace talks or should it be done during the Pre-Interim Period?
Of course, we can create more states; but not twenty one as proposed by the rebels. The creation of twenty one states as advocated by the rebels does not take into account the changes that have occurred since the colonial period. For example, the Aweil and Bentiu Districts of the colonial periods are now states. Under the twenty one states proposal, these two states will continue to be individual states, while the other eight states would have to be divided. Furthermore, the twenty one states would be inequitable among the three regions; Bahr el Ghazal would have seven states, Equatoria six, and Upper Nile eight.
We will probably have to share power on the basis of the three regions while thrashing out the number of states in the first year of the Interim Period. After the existence of ten states, we can no longer return to the three regions as the basis of administration. Many areas of the three regions are very far from their capitals. We can only create more states. But the number of states in each region must be equal. This creation (equal number of states) will disadvantage no one. If you are a large ethnic group, you will have more states. If you are a small group you will be in a state of minorities that does not fear any domination from an extraordinarily larger group.
At the national level, employment in the offices of the president, vice president, and national ministers must reflect the national characters of these offices. Most of the appointments must be distributed by counties if they are more than the number of states. However, the president, vice president, or minister should be allowed to appoint not more than five employees of his choice depending on the total number of employees in the particular office.
Likewise, at the state level, the state executive should be appointed proportionately on county basis. The counties that are not well represented at the state level should be the ones from where the central government ministers and deputy ministers should be appointed. Every county has plenty of educated people that can fill their positions in the state and national cabinets. The employees in the offices of the governor, deputy governor, and state ministers should reflect the populations of the counties, payams, or bomas.
More counties should be created in Western Bahr El Ghazal State and in the former Juba District. When counties were created during the war, the former districts of Juba, Pibor, and Western Bahr El Ghazal were not fairly treated. The Pibor situation has been rectified by the creation of counties in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area, but the situations in Juba and Western Bahr El Ghazal have not been addressed. Of course, there may be other areas such as
those of Kapoeta East (too big to be one county), Lopa (Lafon and Lopit), Magwi and Nimule, Tore and Yei, etc.
The issue of a National Capital Territory should also be tackled in the first year of the Interim Period. Should it be addressed with Juba and Ramciel; or with the new future national capital so that it is planned accordingly? Being in the center of the country, where the three regions meet, each of the three regions should cede equal area to constitute the National Capital Territory? But what should be the size of the National Capital Territory?
Revenue Sharing
Fiscal decentralization or fiscal federalism is a must. Regardless of whether a system is
labelled decentralized or federal, each level of government must have a reliable source of revenue for effectively carrying out its expenditure assignments. Since the central government controls the most lucrative sources of revenues in the country, what it collects is national revenue, belonging to all citizens. Hence, an appropriate formula for sharing it between the three levels of government is a must. Budget allocations of national revenue may begin with a 50:30:20 percentage formula for central, state, and county governments respectively. Likewise, state governments should share the state revenue with the county governments. The county council should allocate county government spending equitably by boma. As the technical capacities of payams and bomas are developed, the county revenue will eventually be subjected to formal sharing with payams and bomas. The formulae should be reviewed every five years and adjusted according to past experiences and changes in expenditure reassignments.
Each level of government must publish its revenues and expenditures and their allocations to various units and levels. Public sector investment programs and their implementation should be closely monitored and progress reports regularly made available to the public and their representatives at every level of government.
Basic salary scale should be the same for the same qualifications and experience regardless of whether one is employed by the central, state, or county government. This will encourage many capable people to work at the lower levels of government where service delivery is mostly undertaken. Each county in South Sudan has a reasonable number of educated people who can be trained to become capable civil servants at any level of government. Those who prefer prestigious or glamorous positions in central government will have themselves to blame for lack of capable civil servants at their local government level. However, technical personnel should be free and willing to work in any part of the country instead of being confined to their states or counties.
Political positions and super scale salaries must be greatly reduced. More money should be allocated for investment rather than on politicians and highly placed civil servants. The number of members of parliament, and their remunerations must be drastically reduced. Fiscal pruning is necessary, with increasing allocation to provide for socioeconomic development and the needs of the poor and vulnerable groups. So far spending has favored the powerful. Now is the time for the appropriate adjustment of the allocation of resources. Salaries must be paid on time.
Federalism can be signed into the agreement but the details must be worked out during the first year of the transitional period. But it must be accepted as the basis of rule so that there will be no reneging after the peace agreement. The problem is that as long as power is concentrated in few hands, it can be used effectively to frustrate any system whether it is called federalism or decentralized. So mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that power sharing (between the center, state, and county) is sustained and is periodically reviewed (every five to ten years).
The top civil servants and diplomats must be distributed roughly proportionate by states or counties. Most importantly, the army must be proportionate by county and boma. No one ethnic group must any longer constitute a larger percentage of the army beyond the proportion of its bomas. The sizes of counties, payams, and bomas must be based on agreed national formulae.
The police and other security forces should be in the hands of the state and county governments. The central government can have a police body dealing with the investigation of crimes committed at national level or internationally.
Regular Elections
Power should change hands through regular elections after every five years. Nobody must be allowed to shoot himself to power no matter how large or powerful his/her ethnic group is. Such an imposition must be resisted. Nobody must hold an executive power for more than two consecutive five-year terms (de jure) or for more than ten years (de facto).
Working an agreement along these lines can promise South Sudan a hopeful future, which is for the good of all its people, including the selfish ones, who want everything for themselves only. Fairness and justice serve all members of society positively. Any war negatively affects us all; directly and/or indirectly. There is no winner. Only that some lose more than others. But we are all losers.
Power sharing should not be based on political parties or between the government and the rebels. At present, these bodies are not representative of all the people of South Sudan. After all, it was the concentration of power between two ethnic groups that led to polarization and clash. Had the Presidential Guard Unit (or Tiger Battalion) not being entirely or predominantly Dinka and Nuer, polarization would have been avoided. Any tensions that developed might have been defused by members of the unit from the other ethnic groups. Historically, a bi-polar system has been unstable and explosive (anywhere in the world, except during the era when major powers possess nuclear weapons).
South Sudan does not really have political parties with national membership. Hence, no political party, including the SPLM, is nationally representative. The SPLM appealed to most South Sudanese before independence because it was seen as the only credible party (with an army) that could liberate South Sudan from Khartoum, either through the transformation of the Old Sudan or by the separation of the South from the North. Once, South Sudan was freed from Khartoum, the SPLM became irrelevant to most South Sudanese. It is just being sustained/revived for power purposes. But this is not going to hold. It might plunge South Sudan into another tragedy. A political party should be formed by people with fairly common vision for the country, but not for the convenience of clinging or sneaking to power.
If the various factions of the SPLM were honest to South Sudan, they should have formed different political parties based on their ideologies and visions for the country- but not by just adding a hyphen to the SPLM. The SPLM had served its purpose of liberation. People worked under the SPLM, even if they had different ideologies, because of the goal of liberating South Sudan from Khartoum – people sacrificed their personal ideologies for the sake of liberating South Sudan from Khartoum.
Even the very name SPLM (Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement) is no longer relevant to South Sudan. We are no longer Sudanese, but South Sudanese. The people clinging to the name SPLM are now a government. They are no longer a movement.
IGAD and other international mediators are just trying to appease the warring parties because this is the only way they believe they can bring the fighting to stop. As much as they sympathize with the South Sudanese population, there is no way they can help the South Sudanese population without the fighting ending. They are not prepared to sacrifice the lives of their own soldiers to bring the war to an end if the South Sudanese “leaders” are not willing to care about their own people. Why must they (IGAD and other non-South Sudanese) sacrifice their soldiers? They have already sacrificed more than enough time and other resources to help us resolve our problems, but we continue to be arrogant, instead of being grateful; and yet we are the losers. We pretend to care for those we have already killed, but we go on killing more.
I do not understand why the government is unwilling to accept federalism, yet the recent conference of “ALL TRIBES” in Juba concurred on federalism. I believe that given our current divergent outlooks, each cultural group needs to be given some breathing space from the others for some years. Then through interactions in towns, economic projects, boarding schools, colleges, and universities, we will come to know and appreciate each other’s cultures. Overtime, ethnocentrism will decline. Our ordinary people are good, but a minority of our elites, from all ethnicities and regions, want to use their numbers to dominate others. They play on ethnic and regional sentiments. They are able to fool their gullible followers.
Power Sharing
Power-sharing should be based on administrative units. Given that the populations of Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria, and Upper Nile are roughly equal, positions in the national government should be allocated on the basis of one third for each region. Say we have twenty-one ministers, each region should have seven. Likewise for the distribution of deputy ministers.
States could be used as the basis for power and resource sharing. But Bahr el Ghazal has four states now while Equatoria and Upper Nile have three states each. Should we create two more states: one in Equatoria and another in Upper Nile? Should the former district of Akobo be added to the Greater Pibor Administrative Area to create a fourth state in Upper Nile; while the Equatorians should agree on the creation of a fourth state in Equatoria? Should this be done during the peace talks or should it be done during the Pre-Interim Period?
Of course, we can create more states; but not twenty one as proposed by the rebels. The creation of twenty one states as advocated by the rebels does not take into account the changes that have occurred since the colonial period. For example, the Aweil and Bentiu Districts of the colonial periods are now states. Under the twenty one states proposal, these two states will continue to be individual states, while the other eight states would have to be divided. Furthermore, the twenty one states would be inequitable among the three regions; Bahr el Ghazal would have seven states, Equatoria six, and Upper Nile eight.
We will probably have to share power on the basis of the three regions while thrashing out the number of states in the first year of the Interim Period. After the existence of ten states, we can no longer return to the three regions as the basis of administration. Many areas of the three regions are very far from their capitals. We can only create more states. But the number of states in each region must be equal. This creation (equal number of states) will disadvantage no one. If you are a large ethnic group, you will have more states. If you are a small group you will be in a state of minorities that does not fear any domination from an extraordinarily larger group.
At the national level, employment in the offices of the president, vice president, and national ministers must reflect the national characters of these offices. Most of the appointments must be distributed by counties if they are more than the number of states. However, the president, vice president, or minister should be allowed to appoint not more than five employees of his choice depending on the total number of employees in the particular office.
Likewise, at the state level, the state executive should be appointed proportionately on county basis. The counties that are not well represented at the state level should be the ones from where the central government ministers and deputy ministers should be appointed. Every county has plenty of educated people that can fill their positions in the state and national cabinets. The employees in the offices of the governor, deputy governor, and state ministers should reflect the populations of the counties, payams, or bomas.
More counties should be created in Western Bahr El Ghazal State and in the former Juba District. When counties were created during the war, the former districts of Juba, Pibor, and Western Bahr El Ghazal were not fairly treated. The Pibor situation has been rectified by the creation of counties in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area, but the situations in Juba and Western Bahr El Ghazal have not been addressed. Of course, there may be other areas such as
those of Kapoeta East (too big to be one county), Lopa (Lafon and Lopit), Magwi and Nimule, Tore and Yei, etc.
The issue of a National Capital Territory should also be tackled in the first year of the Interim Period. Should it be addressed with Juba and Ramciel; or with the new future national capital so that it is planned accordingly? Being in the center of the country, where the three regions meet, each of the three regions should cede equal area to constitute the National Capital Territory? But what should be the size of the National Capital Territory?
Revenue Sharing
Fiscal decentralization or fiscal federalism is a must. Regardless of whether a system is
labelled decentralized or federal, each level of government must have a reliable source of revenue for effectively carrying out its expenditure assignments. Since the central government controls the most lucrative sources of revenues in the country, what it collects is national revenue, belonging to all citizens. Hence, an appropriate formula for sharing it between the three levels of government is a must. Budget allocations of national revenue may begin with a 50:30:20 percentage formula for central, state, and county governments respectively. Likewise, state governments should share the state revenue with the county governments. The county council should allocate county government spending equitably by boma. As the technical capacities of payams and bomas are developed, the county revenue will eventually be subjected to formal sharing with payams and bomas. The formulae should be reviewed every five years and adjusted according to past experiences and changes in expenditure reassignments.
Each level of government must publish its revenues and expenditures and their allocations to various units and levels. Public sector investment programs and their implementation should be closely monitored and progress reports regularly made available to the public and their representatives at every level of government.
Basic salary scale should be the same for the same qualifications and experience regardless of whether one is employed by the central, state, or county government. This will encourage many capable people to work at the lower levels of government where service delivery is mostly undertaken. Each county in South Sudan has a reasonable number of educated people who can be trained to become capable civil servants at any level of government. Those who prefer prestigious or glamorous positions in central government will have themselves to blame for lack of capable civil servants at their local government level. However, technical personnel should be free and willing to work in any part of the country instead of being confined to their states or counties.
Political positions and super scale salaries must be greatly reduced. More money should be allocated for investment rather than on politicians and highly placed civil servants. The number of members of parliament, and their remunerations must be drastically reduced. Fiscal pruning is necessary, with increasing allocation to provide for socioeconomic development and the needs of the poor and vulnerable groups. So far spending has favored the powerful. Now is the time for the appropriate adjustment of the allocation of resources. Salaries must be paid on time.
Federalism can be signed into the agreement but the details must be worked out during the first year of the transitional period. But it must be accepted as the basis of rule so that there will be no reneging after the peace agreement. The problem is that as long as power is concentrated in few hands, it can be used effectively to frustrate any system whether it is called federalism or decentralized. So mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that power sharing (between the center, state, and county) is sustained and is periodically reviewed (every five to ten years).
The top civil servants and diplomats must be distributed roughly proportionate by states or counties. Most importantly, the army must be proportionate by county and boma. No one ethnic group must any longer constitute a larger percentage of the army beyond the proportion of its bomas. The sizes of counties, payams, and bomas must be based on agreed national formulae.
The police and other security forces should be in the hands of the state and county governments. The central government can have a police body dealing with the investigation of crimes committed at national level or internationally.
Regular Elections
Power should change hands through regular elections after every five years. Nobody must be allowed to shoot himself to power no matter how large or powerful his/her ethnic group is. Such an imposition must be resisted. Nobody must hold an executive power for more than two consecutive five-year terms (de jure) or for more than ten years (de facto).
Working an agreement along these lines can promise South Sudan a hopeful future, which is for the good of all its people, including the selfish ones, who want everything for themselves only. Fairness and justice serve all members of society positively. Any war negatively affects us all; directly and/or indirectly. There is no winner. Only that some lose more than others. But we are all losers.
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