Why a kite is not rich? Corruption and its consequences in S Sudan  

A kite is a bird that kills other parasites for food and its prey are fish, chicks, ducklings etc. It has strong sight and it swoops down with its legs lowered to snatch small prey like chicks, rodents and fish. It is the most corrupted bird in the world known for threatening the lives of its fellow birds as well as human beings. However, a kite remains one of the poorest birds in the world despite of the fact that it continues to snatch the ready human food and the younger ones of its fellow birds and this poverty is considered a consequence of the above habit.

The above story of a kite reflect the ongoing corruption in South Sudan and it clearly indicates that whatever is grabbed or taken without legal procedures is always accompanied by consequences. The more you corrupt other people’s resources, the more problems you face. Corruption is adapted by my fellow South Sudanese as the only way of accumulating wealth, acquiring academic documents, securing public positions or scholarships. Everyone has a dream of becoming a minister, director general, senior manager or public official in order to get a chance of corrupting public resources simply to be in the same level with those serving in the above mentioned positions.

In South Sudan, it is very easy to acquire wealth but difficult to manage because a wealth being  secured through corruption and without clear steps also go in the same way. In addition the suffering and cries of the citizens from whom you have looted the resources can be heard by God thus forcing him to punish you either indirectly or directly. It has been happening that two to three individual may corrupt the public funds meant for providing social services to the citizens and divert them to their person accounts in foreign banks. Can such a wealth acquired in the above way stays longer in the hand of these individuals?

The former corrupt rich men who enriched themselves with the government funds from 2005 to 2017 are no longer rich at the time of writing this article. Some of these former rich men had 30 personal v8s, 20 skyscrapers and millions of looted dollars in the foreign banks but currently these properties are no longer in their hands because the cries of the citizens from whom they have corrupted those resources was heard by God.

You may find that some of the former corrupt rich men or women are currently on the streets begging, some of them have already died of stress, others are in jail due to their failure to pay the people’s loans and many have escaped to foreign countries and are currently in self exile because of accumulated loans which they have borrowed from the people.

I have stated in many occasions that there is no rich man or woman in South Sudan and my fellow colleagues usually laugh at me upon hearing the statement. South Sudan is the only country in the world where a criminal is called a rich man/ woman. No self proclaimed rich man in South Sudan can swear that he acquired his wealth through sweat. A rich man is not someone who has accumulated the wealth within two months by corrupting public resources. Such a man is a criminal. A really rich man is the one who have acquired his wealth through sweat and with lawful steps,

The author can be reached via email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Tel +211914606064