By Madut A. Majok
A lot have been written about corruption and stagnation in service delivery to the people of S. Sudan since GOSS was formed in 2005. This out cry is justified, because the masses of S. Sudan and marginalized areas have endured the hardship for two painful decades of war. Now that peace is achieved, a lot of people are looking up to the government to provide services or at least to show them some direction towards self-reliance.
With significant resources from oil wealth and commitment of donors to fund reconstruction of S. Sudan, many people are surprised at GOSS’s inability to speed up service delivery. People have pointed fingers at corruption as an impediment and debated this point over and over again in many internet forums used by S. Sudanese. However, what people have failed to do in this continuous debate/discussion around this issue is to provide ways on how to tackle it. The discussions have often been overshadowed by political considerations to the point that in the process we are distracted from suggesting the way forward.
I believe many of us who have participated in the debates are coming to the realization that this morass will never be defeated unless we present our views on how to tackle it. This piece is my attempt to suggest what could be done to move things forward. I sincerely hope that some of you irrespective of where you reside around the globe will join hands with me and put forward our ideas on how GOSS should serve S. Sudanese.
In this article, I am suggesting three things GOSS must undertake to reverse the current trend:-
1. All levels of government in S. Sudan must be encouraged to apply performance contracts (PC) in their hiring process. A PC for the sake of clarification is a written agreement between a manager of a state enterprise who promises to achieve specific targets in a certain time frame and the government which usually promise to reward achievement with a bonus or other incentives[1].
Since performance contracts call for strong institutional backing in order to be effective, others will argue that S. Sudan does not have strong institutions to provide sufficient incentives and commitment of both parties to the contract. However, accepting lack of institutions argument as a reason why (GOSS) is not establishing strict results oriented hiring is to miss a point. By adopting PCs, GOSS will be making it easier for those responsible for hiring civil servants to set goals and evaluate achievements. It will also make it harder for the same people to hire incompetent relatives or tribesmen, because they know that PCs allow for stringent evaluation that gives positive incentives to excellent performance and negative ones for a shoddy job. Armed with this tool, GOSS could easily weed out both in competent and inefficient employees who are draining its treasury and are not productive.
2. All levels of government must make it a policy to educate employees at lower level to understand the relationship between remuneration and productivity. Every pound paid out to employees must be earned honestly. Everyone in S. Sudan from the farmer in the country side to the office worker in towns must sweat to make a living. Failure to enforce discipline among government workers is the surest way to failure. The same could be said with paying people who are not productive. Surely, we can not afford to encourage a culture where government jobs are seen as leeway to escape hard work. Last year in Wau, I saw government employees sitting under a tree and engaging in unnecessary conversation during work hours. In countries where work discipline is enforced; employees can do what I saw only during their break time. Tree shades are not substitute for offices unless those who indulge in this habit do not have clear job descriptions.
3. GOSS must be prepared to spend money on expertise that is not available in S. Sudan. Judging on how contracts are awarded since GOSS was formed and the kind of services delivered on behalf of GOSS, it is reasonable that GOSS disengaged itself from awarding contracts to briefcase companies own by nationals. Instead, GOSS must institute a competitive bidding process that is open to competent and reputable local, regional and international companies. To ensure delivery on contracts, all bidding companies must demonstrate requisite business integrity as well as financial and organizational competence. Any company without demonstrable business experience and organizational competence should be eliminated in the bidding process. This way, the government can deliver the required services instead of enriching few individuals who are smart enough to register companies on paper which are not backed by obligation to fulfil their contractual demand.
[1] Definition taken from Mary, Shirley and Lixin, Colin Xu Policy Research Working Paper titled “The empirical Effect of Performance contracts: Evidence from China.
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