Our land, Oil, 16 May, Citizenship & Nationality – taken away by Chinese Masters: Is it New Colonization or Slavery in South Sudan?

[Elisabeth Janaina]

Our land, Oil, 16 May, Citizenship & Nationality – taken away by
Chinese Masters: Is it New Colonization or Slavery in South Sudan?
May. 16 More Views, Uncategorized 1 comment

By: Daniel Juol Nhomngek, Kampala, Uganda, MAY/16/2017, SSN;

Summary:
***South Sudan has oil but does not know the terms of the contract
with the Chinese Contractors. From this oil contract, South Sudan’s
government made $316 million from oil sales in about seven months in
2016, the UN says and in March 2017, South Sudan was declared to be
under threat of famine.
***At least half of the country’s budget is being spent on arms even
though a famine has been declared.
***South Sudanese workers who are the owners of the oil are working in
worse conditions than slaves: they are paid peanuts, work under worse
conditions. Government officials are bribed to award Chinese Masters
contracts whose terms they do not know.
***The China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), the biggest investor
in South Sudan’s oilfields is the master and the controller of oil
resources while South Sudanese are slaves on their land.
***South Sudan’s oil is proving to be one of the trickiest puzzles: it
has 7 billion barrels in proven reserves, small compared with African
oil giants such as Nigeria but enough, if it was all extracted, to
meet the oil needs of the United States for a year.

How South Sudan uses its oil, which accounts for almost all of the
country’s income is not clear. But war and corruption rules the oil
drilling.

We all fought the war. The main reason we fought the war was to
control our resources so that we use them for the development of
ourselves and our country. This was the hope every South Sudanese had
before independence of South Sudan. This in fact is a well founded
hope as South Sudan in actual sense is a large country endowed with a
lot of resources.

According to African Economic Outlook, Special Thematic Edition of
2013, South Sudan is a large (619 745 square kilometers) country that
is very rich in natural resources, many of which remain to be
discovered. It also pointed out that the available natural resources
are water, hydro-power, fertile agricultural land (about 90% of which
is arable land), gold, diamonds, petroleum (with proven reserves of 7
million barrels), hardwoods, limestone, iron ore, copper, chromium
ore, zinc, tungsten, mica and silver.

Furthermore, South Sudan has a lot of wildlife of which protected area
of Bandingilo National Park that hosts the second-largest wildlife
migration in the world is one of them. Besides, South Sudan is rich in
agricultural land, which includes the largest populations of
pastoralists in the world.

In spite of the many resources as listed in the above paragraph, South
Sudan remains one of the poorest countries in the world because it has
not utilized other resources except the oil or petroleum. Hence, this
article discusses the management of oil contracts in South Sudan;
negative impact such mismanagement has on South Sudanese citizens,
corruption embedded in and surrounding oil production and business,
mysteries about the oil contract, negative impact the oil production
has on citizens.

Above all, disenfranchisement of citizens which made them to become
slaves in their own land while Chinese citizens exploiting and killing
them by supplying guns to both rebels and the government, which end up
being used indiscriminately against innocent citizens. Hence, my
discussion will be as explained in this paragraph.

What needs to be noted at the onset of this article is our oil
contract is controlled by Chinese and Khartoum. This is because the
oil contact which establishes the relationship between South Sudan and
China was the one signed between Khartoum and China before
independence of South Sudan.

However, since independence, South Sudan has not reviewed the said
contract and does not have any intention to review it. The reason for
this reluctance is not known.

Nevertheless, it appears that the failure of the Government to demand
the contract from China and Khartoum is due to two reasons as
explained below:—

First, there is lack of seriousness and political will on the side of
the government or if not there must be a dominant group of people
within the government who are benefiting from the oil and because of
that their desire is to leave things as they are. This is the first
possible reason.

Second, the failure of the Government of South Sudan to review the oil
contract may be due to the fact that China threatens South Sudan if it
insists on reviewing the said oil contract. Otherwise, if that is not
the case, then under ordinary circumstances, any Sovereign Country
would not allow herself to go into a contract that it has not
understood.

In fact, the first action the Government of South Sudan would have
taken immediately after independence was to recall all contracts
signed by Khartoum in regard to South Sudan oil and other resources in
order to review them.

However, that was not done by Juba and it is not clear why Juba
decided to continue with the contract signed by Khartoum with China
though its terms are not up to date disclosed to the government of
South Sudan.

In addition, failure to adhere to the principles of transparency and
accountability in oil management in South Sudan has left corruption at
oil sector flourishing uncontrollably.

To prove this fact one has to go to Juba city and other towns in South
Sudan to see what is going there. For instance, if one goes there with
the purpose of proving this point, the first thing he or she notices
on the streets of Juba, the capital of South Sudan and other towns is
a lot of white Toyota Land Cruisers, V8, Hammers and other expensive
cars.

All these cars except for the UN and foreign missions, are bought with
oil money and since oil constitutes 98% of country’s income, no much
money is left to develop and provide services to the people.

Thus, all services are not available because of corruption which has
very much affected oil sector, which is the only source of money in
the country. Even this sector generates more than enough money but all
is stolen.

What even worries me or complicates or worsens the matters is the lack
of knowledge about the debts South Sudan owes to other countries and
the World Bank. This is because debt management is poor since there is
no transparency and accountability in borrowing and terms of
repayment. In other words, debts owed to other countries by South
Sudan are not known.

However, the recent International Monetary Fund report for 2016 on the
Republic of South Sudan staff under article iv consultation concerning
the debt sustainability analysis, economic crisis and continued
political instability, it has been found out:
“That the total external debt remained at about US$1 billion through
2016; that by June 2016, debt to the World Bank amounted to US$34
million on IDA terms, while US$100 million had been borrowed from
China Exim Bank to reconstruct Juba international airport. That the
balance of outstanding oil advances from international oil companies
and traders is estimated at US$219 million. Finally, the Bank of South
Sudan (BSS) has an outstanding liability to the Qatar National Bank
amounting to about US$610 million, originating from short-term credit
facilities (guaranteed by the Government of South Sudan) that fell
into arrears in 2015”.

In addition, on April 16, 2015 the Eye Radio reported Dr. Lam Akol to
have said that the government had accumulated more than ten billion US
dollars in foreign debt, which he said is not a secret, although he
did not disclose the source of the information (visit:
www.eyeradio.org/south-sudan-accumulates-10m-debt-3-years)

It should be noted that since 2008, China and South Sudan have
concluded agreements worth about 10 billion USD and the latter through
official channels has expressed willingness to have Beijing’s support
for projects worth 8 billion USD (visit: africanarguments.org › Home ›
Politics).

All the money mentioned above are not granted for free but they are
debts that must be repaid by the Government of South Sudan with
interests. What is even bad is that there is nothing to be shown as a
project on which the above money was spent on.

This is because the lenders do not monitor how the money borrowed from
them is spent by the government. Hence, all money borrowed end in
individuals’ pockets.

It should be observed that it is oil under the ground which is being
sold by the present government and by the time it has gone, South
Sudan would be left without oil but unpaid debts that will make us
slaves to creditors, the ownership of our resources will be taken away
by Chinese Masters and others business organizations.

Oil companies have corrupted the system in South Sudan by
circumventing rules of procurement through bribes. This enables them
to find their way straight to top officials with plans, hence
bypassing the law or other arrangements and are awarded contract
though they have not qualified under the strict procurement rules.
Lack of accountability and transparency hides this serious corruption.

To make the matters worse, some of the South Sudanese technocrats that
had returned from Sudan or other countries with knowledge to work in
South Sudan’s oil industry have conspired with the Chinese Oil
contractors; hence, declining to publish figures like oil output and
revenue, which they consider too important to reveal.

We cannot blame China much but our government of South Sudan since it
is the one duty-bound to fight for the interest of citizens of South
Sudan.

Sadly enough, our government is acting like an imperialist government
which only works for private interests. Currently, our government has
allowed control over oil to be exercised by Sudan and China, which
still have absolute control over oil resources in the country.

As a result, Chinese treat citizens of South Sudan working at oil
sector like slaves: they are paid less than wages or salaries given to
the Chinese workers or employees though South Sudanese workers or
employees may be more qualified than their Chinese counterparts.

In order to remain in control of the oil, China is fueling the war by
supplying guns to both rebels and the government, though the supplies
to the government is more than to the rebels as the Government is
presumed to be in control of the oil.

In order to take control over our oil, the Chinese must be forced to
be more transparent.

The country’s rulers are struggling to crush several rebellions using
arms from China purposely supplied to keep the war going so that they
benefit out of the chaotic domestic politics as the government and
oppositions are struggling for power, money, politics and resources
and for the government to maintain their dominance over the country
resources.

NB// the author is human rights lawyer and can be reached through:
juold...@yahoo.com
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1 Comment

Gatdarwich
May 17, 2017 at 12:43 am

Juol,

You unmistakably know who uses the country’s resources for their
tribal interests. They’re none rather than your truly tribemen, the
traitorous Dinka-Jenges serving in killer Nyankiir’s genocidal regime.
You know where they live luxuriously. Why don’t you call them instead
of making noieses on this website?