Economy
Economy
The economy is defined here as the efficient and concise use of material and nonmaterial resources to maximize a country’s wealth and improve people’s well-being, health, education, income, and living standards. South Sudan has been operating without a transparent and accountable economic system since 2005 when the SPLM led government was formed by merging the rebel Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) with different Southern Sudanese militia groups.
The failure of SPLM led the government to establish credible governing institutions created an ecosystem conducive to corruption, theft, impunity, and embezzlement. This weak SPLM governing ecosystem has been infiltrated by the cartel of selfish individuals who had mortgaged the country to the international criminal chain for selfish gains and who believe that if they eat and get satisfied, then the entire population of South Sudan has no problem.
The PUF led government will establish strong governing institutions that will prioritize investment in food production, health, education, mining, infrastructure development, public financial management reform, and trade.
Food production is defined here as an investment in activities that empower the local population to identify and capitalize on available opportunities that they can exploit to produce food for household consumption and market exchange. It is the responsibility of the government to create a conducive environment for people to use available resources to produce food for their consumption and market exchange. South Sudanese depend on humanitarian food distributed by UN agencies and their partners due to insecurity, natural calamities, and failure by the SPLM led government to prioritize food production in the country.
The failure of the SPLM led government to create a conducive environment for people to produce food has made South Sudan overdependent on food imported from neighboring countries; as a result, ordinary citizens cannot afford to buy basic food commodities because of high prices which keep increasing monthly.
PUF led government will prioritize food production by investing in agricultural projects at the national and state levels. 1) supporting local farmers with extension services. 2) Procuring modern gardening tools to enable government farms to produce enough food. 3) Establishing food processing plants to convert access produces to fine products for future consumption. 4) Training personnel from the agriculture ministry to acquire skills that will enable South Sudan to achieve sustainable food production.
Health is defined here as a state in which a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being is free from illness or injury. Countries with healthy populations achieve economic growth because a healthy person is productive and contributes to a country’s economy. However, the SPLM led government has neglected the health needs of the people of South Sudan, denying them to have access to health services.
The SPLM led government officials starved the health system and used national resources to purchase weapons and ammunition to protect their seats from their armed opponents and seek medication in foreign countries. Since 2015, the South Sudan government has never procured any medicines, leaving the citizens to live by the mercy of God and the humanitarian support from WHO and health partners.
PUF led government will establish a health system that will ensure citizens are physically, mentally, and socially free from illnesses and injuries by constructing national health centers and upgrading the existing health centers to improve services to the people. Review salaries of medical staff to meet the cost of living. Improve medical personnel’s working conditions to enable them to provide quality services. Buy medical equipment and devices for diagnosing and treating to improve South Sudan’s health services and invest resources for training medical personnel to enhance the provision of health services in South Sudan. Procure medicines essential to the treatment of diseases. Prioritize health awareness to empower citizens to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, among others. Establish pharmaceutical factories to ensure the availability of medicines at prices affordable to the people.
Education is defined here as a process of teaching, learning, and facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, skills, morale, beliefs, habits, values, and personal development to achieve a positive change in a country. Education is the primary resource of change which help people acquire knowledge and skills, which they in turn use to acquire jobs. Education improves individual or household income because educated people stand a better chance of lifting themselves out of poor living conditions than uneducated ones. Education enhances the country’s economy by increasing the collective ability of the workforce to execute existing tasks more quickly and efficiently. Education facilitates knowledge transfer about new information, technologies, and products developed by others. Education increases creativity, thereby boosting the country’s capacity to innovate new knowledge, products, and technologies.
South Sudan has a poor education system due to the failure of the SPLM led government to invest resources for the welfare of teachers and the development of teaching and learning environments. The officials of the SPLM led government have neglected education and do send their children to study in foreign countries while leaving behind children of ordinary citizens without accessing quality education in South Sudan.
PUF led government will invest resources to improve the education system in South Sudan by increasing the annual budget for education to help ministries responsible for education improve teachers’ and professors’ living conditions. Build capacities of teaching and administrative staff. Review salaries of teachers and professors to meet the cost of living in South Sudan. Improve teaching and learning infrastructure in all existing institutions while establishing new institutions across the country.
Mining is defined here as extracting valuable minerals from the earth to refine them to benefit a country economically. South Sudan has a variety of minerals; if well-mined with transparency and accountability, it can improve the economy to alleviate the people from poverty.
The SPLM led government’s corrupt cartels are concentrating on oil, mortgaging it to international criminal networks, and dividing its income among themselves, leaving the citizens to languish in abject poverty. They are also individually mining gold for their personal gains.
The PUF led government will prioritize the exploration and mining of minerals for the economic benefit of South Sudan. In the oil sector, PUF led government will develop an accountable and transparent system for selling crude oil, increasing oil production, constructing a refinery to boost internal consumption and income generation, and constructing pipelines to connect neighboring countries to boost oil trade.
2.5 Infrastructure Development
Infrastructure development is the construction and improvement in the quality of facilities of transportation, communication, power supplies, water and sanitation, and building to spark economic growth and improve quality of life. South Sudan lacks the basic infrastructure to jumpstart its economic development.
The failure of the SPLM led government to prioritize infrastructure development is the major contribution to poverty, illiteracy, insecurity, high mortality, and underdevelopment in South Sudan.
The PUF led government will prioritize infrastructure development by constructing 1) factories for essential products that will boost construction work such as cement, iron and steel, ceramic, aluminium, copper, and plastic production facilities. 2) Constructing food processing facilities such as beef and fish canning, fruit canning, and cooking oil production facilities. 3) Constructing major highways to connect states and counties, building bridges across the Nile River to connect the East and West Bank of the Nile, and building one international airport that will act as a hub for huge cargo planes worldwide. 4) constructing megawatt hydroelectric power along the Nile to provide energy for industrial and household consumption. 5) Connecting the ten states with internet and telecommunication networks. 6) Connecting water and sewage systems in all cities, towns, and villages of South Sudan to provide clean water to the people, thereby reducing common water-related illnesses.
2.6 Public Financial Management Reform
Public financial management reform is the process of improving efficiency, accountability, and transparency in public fund use with the purpose of delivering economically sustainable services to citizens.
The SPLM led government deliberately failed to establish a transparent and accountable public financial management system creating loopholes that facilitate their corruption and looting of national coffers for their personal gains.
The PUF led government will harmonize government’s financial management processes and information systems to eliminate bugs that facilitate corruption to improve revenue collection, debt management, budgeting, budget implementation and reporting, procurement, and financial oversight.
In addition to public financial management reform, the PUF led government will restructure government profit-making institutions to increase outputs and minimize costs. Improve the banking sector to meet the growing needs of banking services in South Sudan. Review policies governing the Bank of South Sudan (BSS) to ensure independence from executive manipulation and strengthen BSS to conduct monetary policies, regulation of commercial banks, and financial service provision.
Trade mean the conduct of business providing goods, property, or service primarily for personal, family, or government purposes and includes the advertising, solicitation, offering for sale or rent, lease, and distribution. Trade is crucial in a country’s economy: it expands product availability, lower prices for consumers, boost economic growth, benefits lower-income households, increases employment, and increases overall consumer welfare.
The SPLM led government has failed to create an environment conducive to trade in South Sudan. They failed to invest resources to enable government parastatals to generate income for the country, and they created an environment that threatened the survivability of new start-up entities by allowing criminals to intimidate traders in the markets.
The PUF led government will invest resources to empower government parastatals to embark on daily businesses that can generate income for the government. The PUF led government will strengthen trade with Uganda and Kenya and open trade with Ethiopia and DRC to export internally produced products to their markets, and encourage national and international investors to invest in energy, food production, pharmaceutical products, construction and engineering materials, and education.
The PUF led government will review policies for establishing and operating a business to remove obstacles business leaders face, invest resources to train youth to acquire entrepreneurial skills and establish a funding program for business start-ups.