As citizens eagerly await lower transport fares and cheaper essential goods following the government’s decision to reduce fuel prices, the reality on the ground tells a different story. Public transport fares, food prices, drinking water, and other basic commodities remain unchanged, as if no price reduction had ever been announced.
Once again, ordinary South Sudanese find themselves paying the price for an economic crisis they neither created nor control. This raises an important question: Is the problem the market itself, or the government’s failure to regulate it effectively?
South Sudanese have become accustomed to a predictable pattern. Whenever the exchange rate of the US dollar increases or fuel supplies are disrupted, transport operators and traders immediately raise their prices—often within hours.
However, when fuel prices decline or the exchange rate improves, the opposite never happens. Public transport fares remain unchanged, food prices stay high, and households continue to struggle with an ever-increasing cost of living.
This contradiction raises a fundamental question: Why does the market respond immediately to price increases but completely ignore price reductions?
The decision by the High Ministerial Committee for Economic Reforms to reduce the official fuel price was undoubtedly a positive step. Likewise, the government’s announcement that hundreds of fuel trucks were on their way to South Sudan demonstrated an effort to stabilize fuel supplies.
However, economic reforms cannot be measured merely by official announcements. Their success should be judged by whether citizens actually benefit from them.
Unfortunately, the reduction in fuel prices was not accompanied by official directives requiring lower public transport fares. Nor were inspection teams deployed to monitor markets, or legal measures taken against traders who refused to adjust their prices.
As a result, the fuel price reduction became little more than an administrative announcement rather than a practical economic reform.
The current crisis reveals a much deeper problem than rising prices. It reflects the limited role of the state in regulating markets.
Even countries that embrace free-market economies maintain institutions responsible for regulating strategic sectors such as fuel, food, medicines, and public transport. Governments intervene during emergencies, prevent monopolistic practices, protect consumers, and ensure fair competition.
In South Sudan, however, citizens are often left alone to face market forces without adequate protection. Regulatory institutions remain weak, consumer protection mechanisms are largely ineffective, and enforcement of existing laws is inconsistent.
Blaming foreign investors or migrant traders alone would oversimplify the problem.
Foreign investment is a normal feature of modern economies and has contributed significantly to the supply of goods, services, and employment opportunities in South Sudan.
The real issue lies in governance failures that have allowed strategic sectors—including fuel distribution, food imports, logistics, transport services, and drinking water supply—to become heavily dependent on commercial networks involving investors from Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, alongside their South Sudanese business partners.
The problem is therefore not the nationality of investors but the absence of effective public policies that regulate competition, prevent monopolies, strengthen domestic entrepreneurship, and safeguard national economic interests.
From a political economy perspective, no country can achieve genuine economic security if it lacks effective influence over sectors that directly determine the welfare of its citizens.
If the government is serious about economic reform, citizens have every right to ask several important questions:
• Where is South Sudan’s strategic fuel reserve?
• Where are the national reserves of essential food commodities such as flour, sugar, rice, and cooking oil?
• Where are the strategic reserves of medicines and medical supplies?
• What long-term plans exist to prepare the country for future economic emergencies instead of merely reacting after crises occur?
Strategic reserves are not luxuries. They are fundamental components of national security, protecting citizens against supply disruptions and stabilizing markets during emergencies.
Another equally important question concerns public transportation.
Where is the government’s public transport system?
The national government, the Central Equatoria State Government, and the Juba City Council should have invested in a sustainable public transport system capable of operating during emergencies, providing affordable transport services, and introducing healthy competition into the market to discourage unjustified fare increases.
Citizens are equally justified in asking another question: Where are the government transport services for public servants?
In many countries, governments provide buses that transport civil servants between designated collection points and their workplaces before returning them home after working hours.
Such services are not considered privileges. They are investments in public sector efficiency, productivity, and employee welfare.
In South Sudan, however, many public servants have gone months without receiving their salaries, yet they continue to bear the burden of increasingly expensive transport costs. This situation affects attendance, productivity, and ultimately the quality of public service delivery.
What Needs to Be Done?
Addressing the current crisis requires more than policy statements. It demands immediate action, including:
• Revising public transport fares immediately after fuel prices decline.
• Deploying effective market inspection teams.
• Enforcing laws against price manipulation and monopolistic practices.
• Establishing a functional consumer protection authority.
• Creating strategic reserves of fuel, food, and medicines.
• Reintroducing an efficient public transport system.
• Providing government transport services for civil servants.
A message to decision-makers
This article is addressed to H.E. the President of the Republic of South Sudan, the High Ministerial Committee for Economic Reforms, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the Government of Central Equatoria State, the Juba City Council, the Juba County Administration, the Transitional National Legislative Assembly, and all state and local legislative councils.
Citizens are not demanding the impossible. They simply expect the state to perform its constitutional responsibilities: regulate markets, protect consumers, prevent monopolies, secure strategic commodities, establish reliable public transport, and safeguard the welfare of public servants.
Likewise, legislative institutions must exercise their oversight responsibilities by questioning why reductions in fuel prices have failed to reduce transport fares and commodity prices, why strategic reserves remain inadequate, and what concrete plans exist to strengthen South Sudan’s economic security.
Conclusion
The crisis confronting South Sudan today is not merely a fuel crisis or a problem of rising prices. It is fundamentally a crisis of market governance, weak institutions, and ineffective implementation of public policy.
Real economic reform does not begin with announcing lower fuel prices. It begins when citizens actually experience lower transport costs, more affordable food, and improved living conditions.
In Part Two, we examine an even more fundamental question: How can one of Africa’s major oil-producing countries continue importing refined petroleum products, and why has South Sudan failed to establish national oil refineries since gaining independence?
To be continued…
The writer is a South Sudanese political analyst, researcher, and columnist specializing in governance, public policy, democracy, migration, and anti-corruption. He has written extensively on state-building, constitutionalism, public administration, and socio-economic development in South Sudan. His commentaries advocate for accountable governance, equal citizenship, the rule of law, and inclusive democratic institutions.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.
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