By Amaju Ubur Yalamoi Ayani
Every single day, ordinary South Sudanese citizens pull their weight to build this nation under some of the most challenging economic conditions in the region. From the vibrant market vendors in Konyo-Konyo paying daily municipal dues to local councils, to the dedicated private sector employees seeing personal income tax automatically deducted from their hard-earned paychecks, and the resilient cross-border traders navigating complex customs duties at the Nimule border—we all pay into the state system. We fulfill our civic duties because we want to see our country thrive. Our expectation is only one: these financial sacrifices must translate into public goods. Yet, a paralyzing myth has taken root across our ten states and three administrative areas, forcing us to confront a vital question: Can South Sudanese taxpayers not have the rights to question how tax revenue is spent?
Unfortunately, a dangerous narrative has already entrenched a culture of fear, convincing ordinary people that public finance is a taboo topic reserved exclusively for those at the top of the country’s leadership. We are expected to pay silently, watch quietly, and accept whatever fiscal crumbs fall from the table without asking a single question.
This brings us to another defining question: Do South Sudanese taxpayers truly lack the legal and moral rights to demand strict accountability for how their tax revenue is spent? The answer is not only a resounding one, but also an uncompromising “NO”. Demanding to know where our tax money goes, for example, is not a political favour to be begged for. Principally, it is an indivisible, inherent, and non-negotiable right. As one of our village elders once remarked, “A cow that does not moo dies in the kraal.” If we choose to remain silent, we cannot expect our grievances to be heard. We are not just subjects funding a state mechanism, we are the sovereign citizens and primary stakeholders of this Republic. Our legal system does not silence us—it arms us with the statutory and constitutional authority to demand total financial transparency.
The constitution belongs to the people
The absolute foundation of our right to speak up is firmly anchored in the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011. This supreme law establishes that sovereignty belongs entirely to the people of South Sudan and must be exercised in accordance with the values of democracy and accountability. The Constitution makes it undeniably clear that the national budget process is meant to be a collaborative public contract, rather than a classified state secret hidden away in ministerial safes. By setting clear procedural rules for public finance, the Constitution positions every taxpayer as an active supervisor of the national purse.
Under Article 88, the Executive branch is explicitly mandated to present clear, comprehensive, and detailed estimates of revenues and expenditures directly to the National Legislative Assembly. This process is vital because parliamentarians act as direct proxies for the citizens who elected them. When the Minister of Finance stands before the parliament to present the budget, it is technically an open confession to the taxpayers regarding how much money has been collected and how it is being distributed. This constitutional mechanism ensures that public funds cannot be treated as personal bank accounts, forcing the government to justify every single expenditure line before the people’s representatives.
Furthermore, Article 177 dictates that the power to raise revenue and collect taxes must serve the common good under a strict, equitable constitutional framework. The law does not give the government a blank check to enrich individuals while public infrastructure crumbles. Therefore, when public funds vanish into an opaque black hole while civil servant salaries go unpaid for months, public schools remain without learning materials, and major referral hospitals lack basic medicines, the very spirit of our Constitution is violated. If the law gives the state the power to legally extract money from your pocket, that exact same supreme law gives you the absolute right to track how every single South Sudanese Pound is utilized.
The law demands accountability
Our statutory laws provide us with the exact legislative tools needed to challenge fiscal mismanagement and demand transparency from accounting officers. Chief among these is the Public Financial Management and Accountability Act, 2011(PFMAA), which explicitly outlaws arbitrary and unchecked government spending. The PFMAA was specifically designed to ensure that budget execution is fully transparent, strictly bound to approved national priorities, and wide open to rigorous internal audits. It sets not only clear but punishable boundaries against unauthorized reallocations, off-budget expenditures, and the illegal diverting of non-oil revenues.
When public officials bypass established procurement laws to award lucrative state contracts to their cronies, or fail to publish quarterly budget execution reports, they are not just being negligent—they are breaking the law. The PFMAA places strict personal liability on accounting officers who mismanage state resources, meaning that public servants can legally be held accountable for missing funds. Taxpayers possess the legal right to reference this Act to demand that institutions operate within their designated budgets and stop the rampant practice of extra-budgetary spending that destabilizes our national economy.
Complementing this framework is the Taxation Act, 2009, which rigorously enforces our civic obligation to pay taxes while simultaneously protecting us from institutional overreach. For example, Section 49 of the Act establishes an independent Appeals Board designed to protect citizens and businesses from arbitrary or unfair tax assessments by revenue authorities. Legally speaking, a system that protects your right to challenge how you are taxed inherently recognizes your deeper right to ensure those collected funds are handled legally. It is a logical impossibility to have a legal right to fair taxation without a matching legal right to fair public spending. Remember the proverb: “The hand that gives is the hand that commands.” Since the citizens are the ones giving the state its financial power, they hold the legitimate right to command absolute accountability.
The deepening crisis: Where is the money going?
When we look at the reality on the ground, the contrast between the revenues collected and the state of our nation is staggering. South Sudan is rich in resources—floating on millions of barrels of oil and heavily collecting non-oil taxes from every cross-border container. Yet, look around our country. Where are the paved roads and highways connecting our state capitals? Where are the railways to transport goods, or the world-class airports to position us as a regional hub? Instead, our transport network is paralyzed, choking internal trade and driving food prices beyond the reach of the common person. The question we must aggressively pose to our leaders is simple: If the people pay taxes, and the oil flows daily, who is using the tax dividends?
The failure of our public financial system cuts deepest into human dignity. Civil servants, security forces, and teachers watch their salaries delay for months on end, forcing families into a desperate struggle for survival. While local markets suffer from a severe lack of sufficient foodstuffs, our hospitals lack basic medicines and our schools lack desks and books. At the same time, proper security remains a luxury in many areas, the youth unemployment rate is dangerously high, and severe climate shocks like historic floods and droughts are rocking our communities with zero government-led disaster mitigation. We are facing a structural collapse of public services, making us wonder why citizens are forced to comply with tax laws while the state defaults on its core promises.
This stark contrast exposes a profound moral failure in the management of public funds. While ordinary citizens suffer the brunt of economic stagnation, a tiny group of politically connected individuals enjoy lavish lifestyles, buying up luxury properties abroad and driving imported vehicles on broken streets. This is an explicit diversion of the nation’s wealth. The tax dividends meant to fund agricultural resilience, create jobs for our youth, build schools, and secure our borders are being hoarded by those in power. It is an economic injustice that strips the state of its moral authority to request tax compliance from a suffering population. Truly, “The dynamic of a household is known by the smoke from its kitchen.” The stark lack of public infrastructure and delayed salaries across South Sudan tells us everything we need to know about how our national kitchen is being managed behind closed doors.
The triple dividend: Development, peace and public trust
Transparency is not an abstract bureaucratic luxury. It is the vital fuel required for sustainable national development. When taxpayers can openly track revenue, every South Sudanese Pound can be traced directly to tangible public goods—paved highways connecting agricultural hubs, fully stocked healthcare centres, and properly funded schools. This visibility transforms taxation from a financial burden into a shared investment, driving domestic economic growth and encouraging businesses to expand. Conversely, when financial data is deliberately hidden, development paralyzes. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, vital infrastructure projects are abandoned, and the country remains trapped in a cycle of economic stagnation.
Beyond economic growth, open and accountable financial tracking is a fundamental prerequisite for enduring peace and national stability. In a country emerging from years of conflict, the opaque management of national wealth—particularly oil and non-oil revenues—acts as a dangerous trigger for societal grievance and localized unrest. When citizens across different states see their local revenues extracted but witness zero reinvestment in their communities, a deep sense of marginalization takes root. Transparency neutralizes these tensions by proving that national wealth is being distributed equitably and legally, thereby removing fiscal injustice as a driver of conflict. On the flip side, financial secrecy fosters resentment, deepens systemic inequalities, and ultimately lays the groundwork for renewed civil instability.
At its core, this dynamic dictates the level of legitimacy and trust in government institutions. When a government willingly opens its books to public audit, it sends a powerful message that it respects its citizens as equal partners in nation-building, thereby creating a strong social contract that makes citizens willing partners in civil obedience. Vice versa, a culture of fiscal secrecy completely shatters this public trust. Consequently, it precipitates widespread cynicism and alienation. When taxpayers are forced to watch public resources vanish without explanation, the state loses its moral authority to demand tax compliance. This creates a fractured society where citizens feel entirely disconnected from, and exploited by, those in power.
Shattering the silence and a call for civic action
Underlying tragedy of South Sudan is not a lack of protective laws, but rather the culture of silence and systemic enforcement gaps that allow public money to be mismanaged with impunity. For over a decade, civic spaces have been heavily restricted, oil revenue management has remained largely opaque, and independent oversight institutions have been intentionally starved of the political will and resources they need to function. But laws do not expire or disappear simply because they are ignored by those who sit in high offices; they wait for active citizens to claim them, wield them, and turn them into instruments of justice. As the old proverb warns, “A single finger cannot wash a face.” We cannot expect a single activist, a single journalist, or a single oversight committee to clean up our public finance system alone. It requires our collective, unified effort.
As taxpayers, we must make a collective, conscious shift from passive compliance to active civic oversight. We must stop viewing the national budget as a document that belongs only to the Ministry of Finance and start reading it as our collective national blueprint. Civil society organizations, youth groups, trade unions, and independent media must pool their resources to simplify financial data, breaking down complex national budgets into simple languages that the ordinary citizen in the village can understand and act upon.
To transition our theoretical rights into tangible civic power, we must rally around a unified agenda. Citizens, community leaders, and advocacy groups can directly utilize this list of concrete demands to drive public campaigns and confront institutional complacency:
- Demand open budgets: Force the timely, proactive public release of all state and national budget allocations so that local communities know exactly what resources have been promised to their specific sectors.
- Support and protect oversight bodies: Champion the political independence and findings of the National Audit Chamber, ensuring that corruption or misallocations exposed in their annual reports lead to immediate legal prosecutions and predictable punishments.
- Establish a citizen-led budget monitor: Push for the creation of open-access digital and radio platforms where state financial management, public procurement cycles, and oil revenues are broadcasted transparently to the public.
- Mobilize community and social auditing: Organize localized civil society networks, youth groups, and market associations to physically track, report, and audit whether the infrastructure projects funded by our taxes are actually being built.
- Enact robust whistle-blower and information laws: Demand that the National Legislative Assembly urgently pass an enforceable Freedom of Information (FOI) framework alongside clear protection mechanisms for citizens who expose fiscal corruption.
Conclusion
Taxation without representation and strict accountability is nothing short of financial exploitation. The government is not the owner of South Sudan’s natural or domestic wealth; it is merely the custodian hired by the citizens to manage collective resources for the development of the state. Every rural clinic left without life-saving medicine, every critical highway left broken and unsafe, and every public school teacher left unpaid for months is a direct robbery of the taxpayer’s contribution.
We must firmly reject the elitist narrative that public finance is too complicated or too dangerous for ordinary citizens to talk about openly. Asking hard questions about your tax money is not an act of subversion or disloyalty—it is the highest form of patriotism. As we move forward, let us remember that “An elephant is not burdened by its own tusks.” Standing up for our nation and demanding transparency is not too heavy load for us to carry—it is our absolute civic responsibility. It is time for South Sudanese taxpayers to stand tall, look the authorities in the eye, and demand the transparency, public services, and financial integrity that we have already paid for with our own hard work.
The writer, Amaju Ubur Yalamoi Ayani, is a South Sudanese teacher, political analyst and an independent researcher. His research interests fall within political ideologies, governance models and China’s global initiatives. He is a graduate of International Relations from the University of Juba and can be reached via amajuayani@gmail.com.
The views expressed here are the writer’s own and do not represent any official position or authority. The views do not reflect the editorial stance of Sudans Post.
