In a bold display of misplaced priorities, Co-President Dr. Benjamin Bol Mel has abandoned South Sudan’s mounting crisis, chartering a private jet to Dubai at an astronomical cost of $480,000 for a one-way journey.
This extravagant escape from crimes one commit comes as hospitals lack basic supplies, civil servants go unpaid for more than a year, and essential services collapse across the country.
The timing of this lavish trip is specifically egregious in that this December saw Dr. Bol Mel embroiled in a financial and political tensions with First Daughter Adut Salva Kiir and her uncle Gen. Gregory Vasili, aka Gregory Deng Kuach, a crisis that left Bol Mel sleepless and that he swiftly resolved by pledging $2 million to Gen. Gregory, with an immediate down payment exceeding $300,000.
While money flows freely for personal political settlements, the nation’s institutions starve for basic funding. Dr. Benjamin Bol has robbed the country in the name of the President and he is now robbing the president given that he has become a threat to the first family who do not know how much of their share of the wealth is in Bol’s possession.
The consequences of this financial mismanagement were totally shown in the recent Konyo-Konyo market disaster in Juba.
As flames devoured the livelihoods of hardworking citizens, the fire brigade stood paralyzed. their trucks empty of fuel, their capacity to serve crippled by the same financial grip of Bol Mel that has destroyed institutions across the country.
As the custodian of South Sudan’s finances, with Ministry of Finance, National Revenue Authority and Central Bank at his grip, Dr. Bol Mel’s actions represent more than mere mismanagement, they signal a complete coup over the president as he is indirectly effecting the abandonment of governmental responsibility and through deprivation calling the citizens for popular uprising.
While he enjoys the festive season abroad with his entourage, South Sudan’s essential services remain frozen, hospitals cannot treat patients, schools cannot pay teachers, and government offices cannot function.
The citizens of South Sudan are wise than Bol thinking. By his action, he has triggered that this moment demands accountability. He has awaken up the citizens of South Sudan to now ask as to why their country’s wealth, meant to build infrastructure and essential services, instead funds private jets and personal political settlements.
They may even demand that the pattern of treating national resources as personal property must end.
As Dr. Bol Mel enjoys his holiday abroad, the nation he left behind faces a critical question; how much longer will its people tolerate leadership that prioritizes personal luxury over public service? The time has come for South Sudan’s citizens to demand the return of their nation’s wealth to its rightful purpose. serving the people.
