QUOTE: “Perhaps some of us joined the liberation struggle with the main objective of wealth accumulation at all cost. I’d attribute such an attitude and behaviour by some of us as an alarming sign of moral deficit and decay within us.” Dr. Lual Deng, in ‘The Power of creative reasoning: The ideas and vision of John Garang, pp52.’ EDITORIAL ANALYSIS, AUG/15/2013, SSN; Even though it’s the first time ever that a parliamentary sanctioned and constituted Select Committee has acted to reject a presidential nominee for a ministerial position, most South Sudanese are evidently not fully satisfied or convinced that true justice has been accomplished… not yet anyway! Obviously, the now-infamous Telar-gate scandal, which denied the fake lawyer, Mr. Telar Riing Deng, the important portfolio of the justice ministry, has unravelled and exposed the underlying pertinent problems about President Salva Kiir’s poor and corruption-ridden style of governance. What’s really astounding for the entire nation is how a whole government with its entire array of institutions such as this same National Assembly and the ruling dominant political party, the SPLM, acceded to tolerate for a long time, the fake lawyer as presidential adviser on legal affairs? Forebodingly, the Telar-gate scandal has serious ramifications for the soul of the nation, most significantly it has clearly unearthed the deeply rooted and ongoing national deception by the president and his ruling party and tribal clique. Without any doubt, Telar-gate scandal is one big “alarming sign of moral deficit and decay” within, of course, the SPLM/A leadership and the government leaders. Whereas it seems that the mandate of the Select Committee in the Telar-gate was only limited to querying his academic qualifications, it was shockingly revealed and later accepted by the president himself, that he Kiir and Telar were also involved in the latest mega-dollar scandal. Once again, South Sudanese are deeply discombobulated to learn that Kiir had sanctioned the approval of an astronomical amount of 500 million US dollars for, allegedly, “the purchase of land for the National Security organization.” Rightly, Mr. Telar Deng, as legal adviser then, shouldn’t have had anything to do with such approval of financial matters dealing with government institutions, but what is more serious is what kind of land can be purchased at this price? If one can rightly make a good guess, the supposed land, as usual and without prejudice, would be the Bari tribal land around Juba district where most probably the National Security was going to build it newest premises. Even by the most crooked estimate, no Bari people could even contemplate selling an entire sectional village, clan or community land or even the entire Juba county at that price, as Juba na Bari will never ever be comparable to New York or Tokyo cities property rates. In fact, the truth already on the ground is that the president to date is allegedly the biggest land owner of Bari land, he has more land than any Bari individual (thanks to the paramount chief and governor), land acquired duplicitously since October 2005, when he migrated and settled in Juba for the first time in his life. Furthermore, this potential mega-corruption, if the money has not already changed hands, just adds one more shameful mark on the appalling crime-ridden record of the president. This is the president who has had all his four previous finance ministers implicated and accused of massive corruption, but luckily for them, they remain free and ‘cleansed’ of any criminality despite irrefutable evidence and a hopeless and inefficient Anti-Corruption Commission. Moreover, what the suffering people of South Sudan seriously anticipate and hope for from the Select Committee isn’t pretentious shadow boxing or stabbing the shadow of the elephant, it’s time to take the bull by the horns. Our nation will neither be at peace nor will it ever contemplate moving ahead if its leadership, more specifically its president is the one person sanctioning, abetting and protecting the nation’s economic looters in the perpetuation of the state-sanctioned corruption such as the new land deal. The nation today is at a critical juncture since the splintering of the ruling dominant SPLM party especially following the long simmering antagonism between the president and his deputy who had to be ditched as a consequence. Whatever is happening, the political landscape isn’t going to be the same any more, leave alone whether the country is going to remain united or maintain peaceful co-existence. President Kiir, undoubtedly, is already a lame-duck leader of the country and of his disintegrating SPLM party, and more worriedly for us, is the potential disintegration of the SPLA, the national army, which inevitably and historically, always violently and mortally replicates the spasms and splits of the SPLM. Typically, as a leader deeply afraid of challenges to his political power and paranoid of losing the same, President Kiir, in desperation to consolidate his power, might sacrifice the economic growth of the country so as just to thwart those challenges against him. Furthermore, while impoverishing much of South Sudan, Kiir more likely than not, will set up a violent dictatorship, kill or persistently harass and drive underground or into exile or the bushes, his political opponents, leading into the creation of an absolutist totalitarianism. Like · · Unfollow Post · Share · 2 minutes ago Options
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 01:06:10 +0000
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