It is indicative of the appalling mess that 'New Sudan' is melting into. Juba is a bloody dangerous place to be these days. Armed gangs roam the town at night and deliberately target the compounds of the UN and NGOs. Following the money. The levels of corruption are epic. Almost every commodity is imported through Atiak having been dragged all the way from Mombasa via Busia or Mbale then on through Kampala or Lira, Gulu, Kitgum and over the border. Its a trip of about 2000kms. The economist and friend-of-Bob Geldorf, Jeffery Sachs recently had his minions calculate ht e average speed of an ISO container over the route, 5kph. Cost of journey (according to a local Indian businessman, $10k. And they intend to build a capital city. The roads from the Kenya/Uganda border mostly look and feel like they have been cluster bombed. As each day goes by, with convoys of huge over-loaded trucks, the roads get worse. The journey from Lira to Kampala used to take me 4 hours in 2005, it now takes six. They are rebuilding the Yoweri Museveni Memorial Highway and Regional Bombing Range, between Nakasongolo and Luweero, but it is being destroyed even as its being repaired. The railway line between Kisumu and Kampala fell in the water last week, about the same time as the Government announced that the bridge over the Owen's Falls at Jinja is badly cracked and will have to be rebuilt asp. It is the MSR for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan and E Congo. The Chinese, who are here in hordes, are on a promise to build a railwayline from Kampala to Juba .... some day.
My favorite Sudanese cluster-fug of the moment is at: www.normeca.com/normeca/news/ Southern%20Sudan%20Hospital%20Project_mail.pdf -
It will no doubt be Sudan's equivalent of the Millennium Dome.
The cost of building this 'folly' is in excess of EU 20m
The estimated monthly running costs are EU 5m
There is currently a major crisis because GOSS haven't paid any running costs yet.
Shame for all those expat docs and nurses sitting around the pool drinking cold beers, whilst the locals [Taposa pastoral nomads] have to have a shower before they are allowed in the hospital. This is supposed to be a sustainable project, yep, but who is going to sustain it? And the deal is they will build 9 more, a bunch of mobile clinics and two hospital ships on the Nile! I swear!! Assuming they can attract enough expats to man these white elephants, the monthly running costs will total about $100m a month. Meanwhile 37 nurses were sacked in Juba Referral Hospital ( they only have 50) for walking out because the administration failed to pay them.
Tom: I am back. I wrote the paper on CIMIC and also a shorter article for a magazine. If you instruct me as to where and how I post its URL, i will do so. You were all a great help, thank you. If there is anyone out there who is current on the Dyncorp story, i would be interested. And in anything else S Sudan. Kony is still wandering around the woods in either Congo or CAR, but the people have got bored and gone home. There are some great stories about resettling IDPS in northern Uganda if you think it would start a string. I also have a good friend who is commanding AMISOM in Mogadishu, I could ask him if he wanted to join and offer thoughts, he is desperate for new ideas.