In any consortium, one needs to ensure he or she clears off the membership fees to make him or herself relevant in the grouping. Without this, you may lose your rights in the group.
This leads to the statement about the suspension of South Sudan by the Inter-Government Authority on Development over unpaid membership dues.
Whether South Sudan was barred from its 14 job slots or suspended by the regional bloc, the country needs to clear all the arrears it owes to the bloc to benefit from the slots allocated to the country.
This is a punishment by the IGAD to ensure that South Sudan pays the debts it owes to the bloc. Just like what happens in the school. If a student fails to pay the tuition fees, the administration can decide any measures to ensure that the student clears the fees. The student may be suspended from attending classes or denied his or her academic results.
However, the issues of arrears of South Sudan membership with the regional and international body are so rampant that may even derail the participation of its citizens in the bloc. How would it be easy for a South Sudan official sitting in the IGAD meeting to participate fully if the country has not met its financial obligation to the bloc?
What about for Members of Parliament at the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), how would they discuss their allowances and salaries while their country owes the community huge debts?
These are serious matters that the country needs to address in order not to undermind the participation of the country whether in AU, IGAD, or EAC.
It seems South Sudan has debts in all the organizations and institutions it subscribed to, in June 2020, the country was sanctioned by the African Union in a letter sent to the country’s ministry of foreign affairs after it failed to pay the annual membership fees for the previous three years. South Sudanese participants were also barred from attending the Union’s summit.
Earlier this year, the United Nations listed South Sudan among ten countries that have not paid their annual contributions for two years.
In a letter written by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on January 13 to the President of UN General Assembly, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Iran, Libya, and five other countries did not pay their contributions since 2019.
Also, the East African Community’s Assembly (EALA) in July 202 voted to expel South Sudan but during the leaders of the member states meeting the president pledged to clear the arrears.
In EAC members are supposed to pay $8m a year in and South Sudan was supposed to pay about $30m at the time.