The birds of the same feathers flock together-response to Mathiang Jalap Dongrin (Part 2)

By Zechariah Makuach Maror

The hired briefcase mouthpiece called Mathiang Jalap was paid to cover up all nepotism going on in financial sector under the responsibility of the minister, the prove is that he said, South Sudan revenue authority will work better in absence of the disgraced Dr. Olympio Atippoe and people should not hold to the illusion that South Sudanese staff in revenue authority are inexperienced. The person who is not paid cannot temper to assassinate his character to the point of denying the visible facts everyone knows. This means Jalap is sensitively deaf and blind to feel the inexperience of South Sudanese in financial sector, not because there are no technocrats but some egoistic blockage policies being practiced by his boss to block the South Sudanese economists who are more capable then him, making him resorting to quackery sycophants like Jalap as potential economists who are capable enough to replace Dr. Attipoe.

The purpose of bringing Dr. Olympio Attipoe was to identify major challenges, make appropriate responses, and relevant tools for addressing corruption in revenue administrations. He established some of the 'technocratic' approaches to institute reforms which were previously overlooked or exploited by his boss to corrupt revenue administration - although Jalap and his boss had intentionally neglected some technical aspects as a result of their malfeasance and nonfeasance, it is generally known as social and political phenomenon driven the minister of finance and planning to pathetically acts like this. 

It looks like Jalap is defending what he doesn't know, to tell him the truth his boss is practicing nepotism, which is an act of using power to secure better or divert public favors to advantage his family members or friends when they may not have the right skills, experiences or motivation compared to others. 

“Are you aware that your boss has sacked the foreigner in order to collaborate and loot with his relatives who are heading various parts that generate non oil revenues?”

 He entirely based his works on favoring some groups of relatives and friends, rather than on perfect job performance. Now, he got the chance of earning few resources after he fired the head of revenue authority. He got a chance to collaborate with the head of customs duty who is his blood relative, he also got a chance to collaborate with his new head of revenue authority who happened to be his community in law. The question is, is this a family organization or government institutions?

 Before the contraction of Dr. Attipoe, Garang Mabiordit who is the current minister of finance was benefiting from non oil revenues as our government was not valuing the non oil incomes. So the collected income taxes were illicitly divided among non oil revenue’s officials given a fair lion share of Garang Mabiordit safeguarded. The coming of this outlandish was a disaster to the minister’s incomes that resulted in the shutdown of some of his flourishing business enterprises because of strict channelization of non oil income. I think it is often a long and difficult process that requires civil servants to open their mouth and question our public servants in finance administration to tell us why the president is trying to fight corruption and liken to Jalap and his boss who quest to divert public resources to personal reserves?

 Fighting corruption is not a simple job in a corrupt addicted institution like the finance sector.  Dr Attipoe showed that to fight chronic corruption in revenue administrations, requires reformers to look beyond the formal hierarchical structures of the central state - to the informal networks of patronage and social domination which often determine how political power is actually wielded. There is often an acute disjuncture between the formal rules that define institutional structure and functions and the 'real policies' of how revenue administrations actually work in the reform process which Jalap and his boss should know. 

Jalap talks of expatriate involvement in national politics, quoting the exploitation of Sudanese as an expatriate to the Arab world in 1970s. The problem of Jalap is, he quotes out of the blues- with no knowledge of the subject in question. What happened in 1970s when Sudanese were taken to the Arab World was because of lack of employment opportunities in Sudan and there was by then high demand of manpower in the Arab World which is totally fishy to compare it with this reform exportation. This foreigner was brought as a reformist, not a mere worker seeking for a job as you think. 

Specifically, the use of technocrats’ expatriates in the 21st century has been recognized as an important control mechanism to monitor and evaluate the activities and behaviors within any subsidiary he could be in charge. However, the role of expatriate comprises two elements which are direct and indirect control. Direct control is to have direct involvement in decision making, selection and promotion of local employees while indirect control is exercised through the transmission of values, attitudes and ways of doing things in the institutions he/she might be in charge of. Your problem is either you don't differentiate between policies and politics, or a naive who doesn’t have the ability of recognizing the colors of rainbows.

Now, the ineptitude of Jalab’s boss has brought disgrace and shame to our country by breaching Contracts which is an essential aspect of international commercial activities in international laws. According to international contract it enumerates the work to be completed, or the terms of the work, the responsibilities and the completion periods to be. When a party violates an international commercial contract like this, it can affect every other party in the chain of work and cause serious damages to each of them. This means your boss's decision will cost the government not only money but not limited to apology. 

(When you rattle a snake be ready to be bitten by it)

THE END

Read Part 1 here...

The writer is a political activist and he could be reach via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.