Civilians in Yei River State are calling for an investigation of funding given by the national government, questioning whether the money is ever allocated.
It is believed that South Sudan’s government spends roughly 70,000 SSP on education, health, administration, and sanitation through a funding mechanism called “block grants”. A top official from the local government said on the condition of anonymity said that there are no clear procedures for the block grants.
“We know that the national government is sending a huge amount of money to the county but the county is not able to provide for us anything,” Peter, a civilian in Yei who declined to give his last name. The Yei government claims “that they are not receiving any development grants from the national government. So for this reason, we are demanding that the National Ministry of Finance and the anti-corruption commission be sent to Yei to investigate the use of this fund,”
John Taban, another resident in Yei, said there is not an acceptable water supply, which should have been fixed through these national government transfers.
“If you come to our area in Wuluturu, you will really feel that people are suffering. We don’t have bore holes and my family still fetches drinking water from the running rivers as if we don’t have a government,” Taban said. “We have presented our community challenges to the Government but they don’t listen to the suffering of the people,”