By Deng A. Freeman
At the request of Diaspora Junubin, here are 10 important reasons why you should stop transferring money to South Sudan:
1) There’s no widespread civil war currently going on in South Sudan. So the fact that your family & friends are still struggling has nothing to do something out of their control. It has everything to do with the Gov’t not doing it’s job and Junubin people not holding the Gov’t accountable.
2) When you send money for food, school fees, and medical treatment, you’re actually taking over the Government duties towards its citizens and making it your responsibility. Yes, you are attempting to become the substitute to the Gov’t by providing foods stamps, school tuitions, and healthcare services. You might well start building roads and hospitals in South Sudan if you think you can afford to become the Gov’t. The problems your relatives are facing in South Sudan are ones that can only be solved by the Gov’t, not by individuals like you.
3) Yes, it’s good to help family and friends in need, but everything has a limit. You might try to help indefinitely but you would never be able to make a dent with your limited wages. By transferring money home to an “oil rich” country like South Sudan, you’re actually perpetuating the culture of dependency amongst our people and encouraging Gov’t corruption to even increase beyond what it is now since the Gov’t of SS has now delegated its basic responsibilities to you because you’ve voluntarily chosen to take over them.
4) Your limited income in the Western Works is specifically programmed to support you and your immediate family not to over responsibilities of a foreign Government. So embarking on taking over South Sudan Gov’t responsibilities isn’t a wise thing to do given how limited your wages are. What if something happens to you? Do you think somebody in South Sudan would support you? No way!
5) Keep sending your money home but the day you will return home empty handed, the same people you’ve been supporting with your money would be the first to mock you for having returned home empty handed. That day. you’ll regret every single dollar you transferred home for the last 20 years.
6) Yes, your family and friends back home may seem desperate for help, but what if you didn’t go abroad? How would they have survived without you? In fact, how are other families who do not have relatives abroad surviving in South Sudan? How many people do you hear starving on the side of the road in South Sudan everyday?
7) Just because somebody in South Sudan is begging you for money doesn’t mean they don’t have any other options to survive. In fact, the reason they always contact you is because you’re the easiest option for easy money compared to other options at their disposal such as (Working, demanding their rights from the Gov’t of SS for jobs, schools, hospitals, roads, etc.). It’s human nature to always go for the easiest option that would yield results.
8) If somebody who is workable keeps asking you for money, just ask them one day to tell you the details of what they did with their time the day before. They might have slept whole day, played dominoes for 6 hours, went out for overnight party with girls, etc. Is such a person is whom you would want to send your hard earned money to? When was the last time you played dominoes all day? Slept in until 4 o’clock in the afternoon?
9) Currently, so many foreigners (e.g. Eritreans, Ethiopians, Somalis, Ugandans, Kenyans, etc.) are immigrating to South Sudan to work and send money back home to their country while you (Diaspora Junubin) are still sending money home to support your lazy ass relatives, how is that making sense to you?
10) If you’re waiting for your relatives in South Sudan to finally inform you that you should now stop sending them money because they’re now able to support themselves? Well, Jesus Christ will return while you are sending money. No one will ever tell you to sop sending money my friends. You need to read the tea leaves and do the right thing for yourself and for your children.