Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Edmund Yakani has called on the government to name and shame corrupt officials to demonstrate its efforts on financial reforms.
“If they are fighting corruption and not in a transparent manner, it will not convince the citizens that the government is committed to fight corruption. Meaning corrupt officials should be dismissed and named so that we do not give them opportunity to come back to public institutions,” he stressed.
Yakani called for transparent delivery of economic reforms arguing that it is the only way South Sudan can pull out of world most corrupt country on the global corruption perception index.
“If we do not deliver the economic reforms in a transparent manner, it is going to be problematic and this is giving us a lot of concern. We are still ranked one of the most corrupt countries. There is no improvement in our corruption index and you begin to wonder what is happening?”
The Executive Director questioned why the country rates as the most corrupt on the global stage despite sourcing funding from the World Bank to facilitate financial reforms.
His sentiments came days after the World Bank granted $34 million to ease economic and institutional reforms. Yakani said the money should be used in a transparent manner, adding that the expenditure of the money should be publicized through the media to keep citizens informed.
Yakani called out the government saying officials fired for corruption-related scandals must not be recycled and reappointed to public offices. This, he said, serves as a stumbling block to economic and institutional reforms. Yakani said part of the transparency they wish to see is for the Auditor General to audit government books.
On March 4th 2022, the World Bank approved $34 million in International Development Association (IDA) grant financing to support a new five-year Public Financial Management (PFM) and Institutional Strengthening Project (PFMISP) in South Sudan.
The project aims to advance public financial management reforms, strengthen key oversight institutions, and improve budget transparency and PFM outcomes in the country.
The project specifically aims to improve the preparation of the national budget and associated implementation processes. Additionally, the project will support the implementation of key public financial management and governance reforms — as outlined in Chapter IV of the 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) and its commitments under the International Monitoring Fund’s Staff Monitored Program (SMP).
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