{"id":46205,"date":"2026-07-20T14:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T12:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/?p=46205"},"modified":"2026-07-20T14:29:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T12:29:25","slug":"opinion-the-dream-of-economic-reform-is-shattered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/20\/opinion-the-dream-of-economic-reform-is-shattered\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: The dream of economic reform is shattered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer: Tong Akok Anei<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

South Sudan’s economy has plunged into an abyss that cannot be recovered from by taking soft action or by compromising a certain institution or any other divine intervention. Our leaders had been singing about economic reform, but nothing tangible changed; perhaps it changed in their pockets and their households\u2014that is what is known to them.<\/p>\n

Most of our approaches to economic reform only view it through the lens of empirical approaches, through observation: how did country X alleviate itself during its hard times? What policy did country X observe to succeed, and what about the taxation infrastructure?<\/p>\n

A country’s economy does not improve only through policies and taxation; it requires additional production to supplement these policies to work effectively. This theoretical or empirical approach alone will not have an impact in South Sudan’s economic setting.<\/p>\n

Year by year, the inflation keeps on getting worse; market prices hike, and civilian salaries stand still and are not there in some months. But the country is operating; how does it work when people go for months unpaid?<\/p>\n

How does it work when civilian monthly pay is equivalent to a kilo of sugar, ranging between 10 and 30 dollars? This simply tells us that we are operating on a corrupt basis, for huge amounts of budget go for institutional operation and then, in the background, dry up for other unrealistic projects.<\/p>\n

The foreign and local banks with local currency are nowhere to be seen; even if you are a domestic producer, you need to have a dollar for your next activity because you can’t have the budget, or the bank cannot afford to release for you the budget it takes in SSP for you to have another activity: “NO MONEY IN THE BANK.” And mind you, the corruption has also engulfed the foreign and local banks as well; you can be a dealer or contact a dealer to deal in your own money you banked with them.<\/p>\n

If you have your SSP fund in the bank and it’s not powerful in one way or another, you won’t access it even if it means being sick and dying or even if it means your business is collapsing, or else you’ll join a black market within the same foreign bank where a good portion of money will be siphoned in the process.<\/p>\n

For our economy to stabilise, let’s own 50% of our basic production of essential commodities domestically; produce our flour not only for Juba but also distributed across South Sudan; produce our rice; produce our tea; and many others to the level that if there is no import, we can push further.<\/p>\n

If we want our economy to stabilise, let’s remove the invisible hands that siphon huge budgets on specific projects of no priority; let’s denounce unrealistic projects and projects of less common agenda.<\/p>\n

Let’s denounce the background exercising of powers and provocation of financial institutions. Let these institutions operate independently within their mandate and policies without tickling them under the table or pressuring them to take their jobs; let’s improve our taxation infrastructure. Don’t tax our small-scale businesses to death; they are important to economic growth. For this, we will see a tangible change in our economic breakdown.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The author can be reached via tongakok47@gmail.com<\/a> & tongakok7170@mail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Disclaimer:<\/strong> Any opinion published on our platforms does not represent the position, view of the company or its editorial policy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writer: Tong Akok Anei South Sudan’s economy has plunged into an abyss that cannot be recovered from by taking soft action or by compromising a certain institution or any other divine intervention. Our leaders had been singing about economic reform, but nothing tangible changed; perhaps it changed in their pockets[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":46122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,90,80,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists","category-commentary","category-national","category-oped"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Tong-Akok-Anei.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46205"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46212,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46205\/revisions\/46212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}