By Isaac Chol Aguer
What falls from above is always carried by the ground.
That’s a universal law no government or council can break. In South Sudan, we’ve perfected the role of the ground — enduring every sudden decision, power struggle, and tax initiative.
But — to be fair — not everything that falls from the sky is bad. Sometimes good things land too, bringing real improvements and opening closed doors.
The latest clash wasn’t about war or peace, but about who gets to milk the suffering citizens.
Between whom?
The Central Equatoria State Government (CES) and the South Sudan Revenue Authority (SSRA).
And what’s at stake?
Who has the right to collect revenue from the exhausted public.
The SSRA — in a burst of zeal — decided to divide Juba into ten tax collection zones without glancing at the constitution or consulting the CES government and the Juba City Council. The CES cabinet officially condemned this unilateral move in its latest session, declaring it unconstitutional and lacking consultation.
We’re no strangers to taxation here. The Juba municipality is an old master in squeezing money. It once confiscated a widow’s chairs in Konyo-Konyo market or shut down an orphan’s kiosk for failing to pay the so-called “Mayer service fee” — a Mayer whose main concern is preserving his prestige, expanding his motorcade, and keeping his car spotless.
This obsession with taxation has sparked grassroots responses. In Nyakuron, for example, as soon as the rain falls, local youths patch a rickety wooden bridge and demand a thousand pounds to cross. Unpaid? You swim.
Then there’s Malakia Street — a road devoured by rain every season. Every year, idle youths fill it with dirt and gravel and wait for a penny from passing boda-boda riders and luxury car drivers.
The real burden falls not on the merchants — they simply raise prices. If taxes go up, so does your morning cup of tea. In Juba, tea has become a precise gauge of taxation — the more tax zones, the more expensive your cup of tea.
The problem isn’t taxation or revenue itself. It’s that people pay and receive nothing in return. No paved roads. No drainage. No services. Everyone rushes to collect money, while the citizens rush to avoid wading through ankle-deep rainwater.
A country emerging from war shouldn’t become a tax collector with no services. Real nations are built on fairness before taxes, and services before levies.
May God guide those in power to turn revenue battles into a competition to serve people — not a race to divide tax zones. Perhaps one day, we’ll live in a nation that taxes to serve, not to punish the poor.