Prof. Tag Elkhazin is an Associate Professor at Carleton University, one of the most prestigious institutions in Canada. He is also a member of the African Study Group and a member of the Board of Directors of the Archaeological Institute of America. He has been following up on political, social, and technical issues in South Sudan since May 1972, especially the Nile waters and climate change. He trained and worked across the world in Water Resources, Human Resources, and Implementation of Infra Structural and Energy Projects. He trained in Strategic Studies, Peace Building, and Alternative Dispute Resolution in the United Kingdom and Canada.
In this second and final segment of the exclusive interview with Radio Tamazuj, Prof. Elkhazin says the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) leaders who ascended to power did not take their role in the struggle as a duty to liberate the people of South Sudan and have now developed a sense of ownership that they own South Sudan and can do all they want brazenly.
He also lambasts President Salva Kiir’s style of management, referring to the frequent and unexplained sacking of government officials and ministers as “governing by firing and hiring” which he argues should not be done because it is administration by trial and error. According to the scholar, well-wishers will not give the government money because of the shameless and now endemic corruption.
Find below the edited excerpts:
Q: How would you rate the performance of the Government of South Sudan?
A: I have records of the firings the president has done in the last three years and it is shocking because there is no government stability. Somebody is put in today and he is fired the next day. Look at what happened to Gen. Akol Koor, the former Director General of the National Security Service’s (NSS) Internal Security Bureau (ISSB), he was fired and appointed as the governor of Warrap State and the president waited for him to come back from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and land in Juba and fired him that night again. And then to add insult to injury, what we call bootlicking, Gen. Koor praised the president in a letter. That does not happen anywhere, a full General should respect himself.
So, we have a problem with governance and the concept of freedom. The old timers of the SPLM/SPLM, do not take it that it was their duty to liberate South Sudan and there is now a sense of ownership that they own South Sudan, own the people, and that they can do what they want. We cannot have governance like that, this is not a national attitude of a people and the priorities are being ignored.
Q: Back to the Nile waters, don’t you think treaties that were signed when Sudan was one are affecting the Republic of South Sudan now?
A: It is true that people paid and are still paying the price because 27 villages in Wadi Halfa were submerged through Lake Nasser. As we speak now, 17 percent of the surface area of Lake Nasser falls within Sudan. When Gen Ibrahim Abboud, after the agreement was signed, went to Wadi Halfa and saw the damage, he cried. All the geological sites were submerged by the water. So, Sudan made a lot of mistakes and one of the earlier ones was when Sudan and Egypt started arguing about the compensation for allowing the dam to be built there was to transfer the villagers to another location. When they did not agree, it was Sudan that said that they were appointing Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, as the umpire, and that they would accept whatever he said. Egypt paid Sudan only about 33,000 or 34,000 Sterling Pounds, that’s all. That was one of the major injustices due to wrong water policies. So, yes, the answer to your question is that Sudan holds a lot of blame. However, Sudan, for a long time has been in the shadow of Egypt and there is nothing you can do about it.
Q: For almost the fourth year now South Sudan has been experiencing unprecedented floods that have displaced thousands of people and destroyed their livelihoods among other problems. How can the floods be mitigated?
A: In water science, there are water politics and water policies. Also in dealing with nature-made or manmade catastrophes, there is early warning and early response. Apart from early warning, you have to have an early response capacity otherwise even if you know what is going to happen, it will affect you. There are studies, including the public consultations that I had in Juba of which I was senior consultant and senior advisor, and the report is there and I gave it to former Presidential Affairs Minister Barnaba Marial. It was endorsed by the council of ministers and nothing happened.
When I was in Bor there was flooding I think in 2003/4, and I checked and found that the companies that built the roads did not do a proper job of making the water pass into the river. So, the flooding was not from the river’s shores but from the obstruction of the rainwater from getting to the river. If there are no topographical inclinations, you would not get the water getting into the river. So, I discovered that the culverts were not enough on the new road that was linking Bor to the airport. Even on the Juba-Bor Roead, the culverts were not enough, they destroyed the culverts and the water went over and destroyed the road. So, even if you want to do pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, it has to be done by people who know what they are doing. What I did in Bor was to enlarge some of the culverts so that the water passes through otherwise it would flood the town.
There is a lack of accountability and supervision and there is a lack of the golden rule; “don’t go through early warning without having the capacity for early response.”
The Primary advice and recommendation I gave after the public consultations in Juba in 2022 was that we need to establish, a water resources, and water policies commission, not just a ministry. The commission is normally made out of experts and the commission would work with the head of state and formulate policy directives. If I appoint a minister and send him to the ministry, what is he going to do? He might do what is not right or in the interest of the government or even the people. So, in any self-respecting country, when you appoint the minister, you have got to give him policy directives.
On the record, when President Kiir was asked why he was replacing the ministers all the time, he said he would continue appointing them until he finds the right ones who fix things. That is called governing by firing and hiring and you do not do that because it is trial and error. He has been bringing new ones (ministers) and nothing has changed. What is lacking is a think tank that generates policy directives so that the ministries work in tandem, in cooperation, according to a plan, and target and they work based on early warning, and early response. Early warning is easy but for early response, you have to have the capacity.
Q: What are the prospects of South Sudan resuming oil exports through Sudan? What is happening?
A: As we speak, the eastern crude oil pipeline is not operational until now. As far as I know, the pipeline is ready but the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are not going to allow the oil to pass. I will wait for three weeks and see whether it will pass or not. The eastern pipeline, the main one, carries 110,000 barrels a day. The western pipeline carries about 50,000 to 60,000 barrels a day and Sudan gets its share. I will for two to three weeks to see what is going to happen exactly.
To answer your question, there is a need for a high-level commission of experts to be close to and advising the president and he needs to listen to them to ensure that recommendations are put into action.
Q: What advice would you give the leadership and the Government of South Sudan on the management of the country’s water resources, governance, and other issues?
A: Right beside me are some of the books about the Nile and the Nile waters and there are more on the shelves behind me. I tried my best with former Presidential Affairs Minster Dr. Barnaba Marial and the former Director General of the Internal Security Bureau, Gen. Akol Koor to establish archives for South Sudan.
There have been eleven Nile water agreements since 1898. When I shared them with Michael Makuei when he was justice minister, he had never seen them before. There are 47 water agreements managing different river basins in Africa and all of them are working. Here in Canada, we have the Internal Joint Commission which is between the United States and Canada managing the lakes and the Saint Lawrence River. So, many models and modules can be followed. The water policies should be very well researched. If there is a commission and a think tank, then people who can speak this language can be on that committee. Sometimes there is what we call interdependency which means that if you have something that I need, and you are willing to give it to me, and I have something that you need and I am willing to give it to you, then there is interdependency.
Politics is about interests, about what is in it for me, it is not charity. So, I think there are root causes for the mess that we have now in South Sudan and unless they are addressed, I do not think that we are going to go forward. South Sudan is now an established fragile state and fragility stands on three legs; authority, capacity, and legitimacy. And there is a question mark on all three in South Sudan. That is to answer your question.
The issue that is very troubling to me and very troubling to everyone, is that of young girls aged 10 and 11 up to 16 who have been defiled and raped by animals and one of them died as a result. Who are these people? If humanity is not there in governance, I do not know what else the leaders are there for.
Also, I was extremely disturbed when it was proven that Information Minister Michael Makuei requested and got USD 125,000 to bury his late daughter. May God rest her soul! Did anyone give these innocent girls who were defiled USD 125,000? Did anyone go to the funeral of the ones who died? Did they go and pay their condolences? What we are hearing now is that there are beasts within the community who have to be dealt with. Destroying the lives of the girls is not civilized, it is not humane.
Q: What needs to be done to address the lack of rule of law and accountability in South Sudan?
A: The rule of law is important and is always established by setting an example. You cannot allow a cabinet minister who is sanctioned by the United States of America and the United Nations to request and get USD 125,000 of public funds for personal use. That means that if I have money that I want to give South Sudan, I will not. You cannot give someone USD 125,000 when the rank and file are not getting their salaries for more than 10 months.
So, the issue takes us from governance and physical things to the morality of the government. A government that has no morality is not fit for the people of South Sudan. It means there is a divide between the government and the very good, honest, and generous people of South Sudan. I lived among them, built 58 haffirs (manmade groundwater reservoirs) and started 85 others, slept under trees, was never threatened and they used to guard and keep me safe. So, that social divide is very interesting for us in political science because while the people deserve all the best things on earth and then they have a government that is not doing much.
Q: We have seen a lot of suffering across the country with government salaries not being paid and the economy failing and suicide cases have been on the rise even among the armed forces. Do you think this will lead to a popular uprising?
A: 52 percent of the population of South Sudan are either pastoralists or dependent on pastoralism. This has caused some friction because you cannot govern people driving their cattle and moving from one haffir to the other because all that they need is water. We have a saying that in South Sudan, “people follow cattle and the cattle do not follow the people.” So, even when doing haffirs, you have to do them in series because every other day, each head of cattle will need at least 20 liters of water otherwise they will die. So, there is a problem that requires study and innovation. Innovation is how people go forward and it comes from universities and think tanks. So, the tool for devising solutions for problems, that collective intellectual capacity, is not there. Unless the president or presidency enacts commissions, and funds them well rather than traveling all over the place, so that you can find solutions, it will be difficult for you and I to find evidence-based solutions. This is what we want and not just talk. So, we need to have a due process of revising our needs, prioritizing them, and prioritizing the general population. Now we have first-class and second-class citizens in South Sudan and the majority are second-class citizens. They do not have salaries, services, and water for themselves and their animals while there are palaces, sports cars, children studying abroad, etc. Someone who embezzled money from the presidency was arrested, imprisoned, and released and he is back and appointed to an office in the presidency. That does not happen anywhere in the world. I do not fear anyone, I do not fear the president or the SPLM, I am on the side of the people and we all need to be like that regardless of the harm that might come to us. We must stand up and have a voice for those who are voiceless.