South Sudan: From Money Box to Tinder Box

Sep 5, 2014 | Daily Maverick
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The box was half the height of the minister’s desk. At the start of the day it was full to the brim with South Sudanese banknotes.

The national-level official would see 50 people every day, or until the money ran out, according to someone who worked with him and asked to remain anonymous. “He would pick a different community or area every day, and give them money. That’s what he saw as his job,” his former colleague says.

Many other officials were not so generous: South Sudan’s money ended up in their own pockets. Fuelled by billions of petrodollars from South Sudan’s oilfields, corruption rapidly became one of the defining features of the state, which declared its independence from Sudan in July 2011. It may even have contributed to the terrifying civil war in the new country, which broke out last December.