By Hon. Mogga Charles Guya Secretary for Foreign Affairs, South Sudan National Movement for Change (SSNMC), Juba Introduction South Sudan continues to experience a severe liquidity crisis characterized by shortages of physical cash, high transaction costs, limited access to financial services, and reduced confidence in the banking sector.

These challenges have negatively affected businesses, public servants, traders, and ordinary citizens, slowing economic activity and undermining national development.The adoption of electronic banking (E-banking) and electronic money (E-money) presents a practical and immediate solution to ease liquidity shortages while laying the foundation for a modern, inclusive, and resilient financial system.

By initially strengthening digital financial services in urban areas and gradually extending mobile money services to rural communities, South Sudan can stimulate economic growth, improve financial inclusion, and enhance economic stability.

The Economic Importance of E-Banking and E-Money

1. Reducing the Demand for Physical CashElectronic transactions reduce dependence on banknotes by allowing payments, transfers, and purchases to be completed digitally. This minimizes pressure on the banking system during periods of cash shortages and enables economic activities to continue without interruption.

2. Improving Financial Inclusion. Many South Sudanese, particularly those in remote areas, lack access to traditional banking services. Mobile money enables citizens to send, receive, save, and access money using mobile phones, bringing financial services closer to underserved communities.

3. Supporting Businesses and Trade Digital payments enable businesses to pay suppliers, employees, and government taxes efficiently. Faster transactions improve cash flow, reduce operational costs, and encourage investment and commercial expansion.

4. Enhancing Government Revenue Collection Electronic payment systems improve transparency and accountability in tax collection, customs duties, utility payments, and government service fees. Digital records reduce opportunities for corruption and increase domestic revenue mobilization.

5. Strengthening Banking Sector Stability: As more citizens use electronic banking, commercial banks can better manage available liquidity, reduce operational costs associated with cash handling, and expand access to financial products such as savings accounts and digital credit.

6. Promoting Transparency and Accountability Electronic transactions create verifiable records that improve financial accountability for both public institutions and private businesses. This contributes to stronger governance and helps combat financial crimes.

Urban-to-Rural Expansion Through Mobile Money.

The implementation should begin in major urban centres such as Juba, Wau, Malakal, Bor, Yei, and other municipalities where banking infrastructure and telecommunications networks are more developed.Following successful urban implementation, mobile money services should be expanded into rural communities through partnerships with telecommunications companies, commercial banks, microfinance institutions, and local agents.

This expansion would allow farmers, traders, teachers, healthcare workers, and rural households to participate in the formal financial system without travelling long distances to bank branches.Short-Term Economic Benefits

• Reduces liquidity shortages by shifting transactions from cash to digital payments.

• Increases business confidence and market efficiency.

• Facilitates faster salary and pension payments.

• Improves trade between urban and rural markets.

• Supports humanitarian cash assistance through secure digital transfers.

• Encourages savings and investment.

• Reduces transaction costs for individuals and businesses.

• Enhances financial resilience during economic shocks.

• Policy Recommendations: To achieve these objectives, the Government of South Sudan should:

1. Develop a comprehensive national digital payments policy.

2. Strengthen telecommunications infrastructure nationwide.

3. Encourage partnerships between banks and mobile network operators.

4. Introduce consumer protection and cybersecurity regulations.

5. Promote financial literacy and digital skills across all communities.

6. Digitize government payments, including salaries, taxes, pensions, and public services.

7. Encourage merchants to adopt electronic payment systems through incentives.

8. Strengthen oversight by the Bank of South Sudan to ensure financial

9.stability and public confidence. Conclusion: The adoption of E-banking and E-money is not merely a technological advancement but a strategic economic reform capable of addressing South Sudan’s immediate liquidity challenges while creating the foundation for sustainable economic transformation.

Through phased implementation beginning in urban centres and expanding to rural communities via mobile money services, South Sudan can strengthen financial inclusion, promote transparency, stimulate commerce, and accelerate national economic recovery.

A modern digital financial ecosystem will help reduce reliance on physical cash, improve confidence in the banking sector, and position South Sudan for long-term economic growth, stability, and prosperity.

BY DR. SUNDAY DE JOHN

Again, this fact is clear. They needed my voice when they sought political impact and factual oratory. They needed it when they were desperately looking for local and international attention. Now that I have spoken my truth regarding the issues facing my country, they desire my silence. This reveals everything you need to know about their true nature and confirms any suspicions you may have had about what this so-called opposition is genuinely based on.

Truth be told, I did not reach my current political standing from a comfortable apartment in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Toronto, Ottawa, Berlin, Oslo, Rome, or London. I have paid dearly for it, and I continue to do so, enduring a painful exile just a short distance from our beloved motherland. As a founding member of the South Sudan United Front/Army (SSUF/A) and later the leader of my splinter faction, the South Sudan United Front-Progressive (SSUF-P), I openly disagreed with figures like Gen. Paul Malong Awan and Pagan Amum Okiech at a time when such dissent came with significant consequences. They do not have a national agenda other than their own political rebranding. I told them without remorse.

For this reason, these individuals and their associates actively sought to prevent my participation in the establishment of the National Consensus Forum. During the peace talks, they worked tirelessly to eliminate me, Laraka Machar Turoal, Peter Gatkuoth, Joseph Madak, and other young leaders without any regard for our contributions. They demanded that we either align ourselves with their factions and serve their interests or be excluded from the peace negotiations altogether. The TUMAINI Initiative finally collapsed, in part, due to their exclusionary arrogance and ambition.

The pattern was always unmistakably the same: they would use the young and then discard them, doing so repeatedly. I was deemed useful when they required a thinker, an effective communicator, a digital warrior, and a principled voice to challenge the government. However, the moment power-sharing became part of the discussion, I was considered an inconvenience. That reflects their mindset.

What they must know is this: my opinion counts. I am part of nation-building even outside government, perhaps more so precisely because I have never been inside it. I have never stolen from this country. I have never held an office, received a government salary, or approved a budget that disappeared into private accounts. My hands are clean in a political environment where integrity is a rare and remarkable quality. This independence is not a liability for me; I believe it is the only currency in South Sudanese politics that cannot be fabricated or bought.

Let me correctly name for you what is happening. Many of those who are currently insulting me do so out of pure hatred or are hired by economic fugitives, those individuals who looted South Sudan’s public wealth, fled before facing accountability, and now live comfortably in foreign capitals while lecturing the rest of us about patriotism. Others, tainted by the blood of innocent citizens, are seeking political rehabilitation through opposition movements that serve as vehicles for their own recycling, with the hope of returning to the same table and feast. They recruit young people for their digital energy and sacrifice, then push those young people aside the moment negotiations begin, showing that they are more interested in their own power and influence than in the well-being of the nation. South Sudan is not their cause. It is their hunting ground.

Likewise, there is a particular arrogance that grows in diaspora. Some people who left the country and acquired citizenship elsewhere now believe that distance has given them clarity. It has not. It has given them safety. Safety to make noise, including defamation without consequences, to diagnose leaders from videos, and to demand regime change from their comfort in neighborhoods where their own children are warm, and their own futures are secured. Nobody is against the diaspora. But holding a foreign passport is not a license to destroy the home you left behind, and calling yourself more patriotic than those who remained in hardship, fighting for liberty, is an insult that should not go unanswered.

As honest citizens, we can all affirm that President Salva Kiir Mayardit, if he has failed, did not fail on his own. The very men whose agents are now diagnosing him from abroad have failed him. They built a culture of impunity, which allowed corruption and violence to flourish without accountability. They looted the resources. They ignited the war and fled its consequences, leaving ordinary citizens to bleed while they rebranded themselves as liberators.

The underdevelopment of South Sudan is their crime as much as anyone’s, and they have never once stood in a courtroom to answer for it. I will not join their chorus. President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Dr. John Garang de Mabior are the backbone of our history, and I will stand with that history, openly and without shame.

Ask me whether I was bought. I will tell you plainly: President Salva Kiir Mayardit bought me with his sweat through a liberation that gave me, my family, and every South Sudanese the country we call home today. He has never paid me a single pound. I owe him nothing except the truth, and the truth is that you, his loudest critics, are not a viable alternative. You serve as a cautionary tale of what South Sudan must never become again.

Till then, yours truly, Mr. Teetotaler!

The writer, Dr. Sunday de John, holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) from the University of Nairobi, Faculty of Business and Management Sciences and Faculty of Medicine, respectively. He is the current Chairman of the South Sudan United Front-Progressive and can be reached via drsundayalong4@gmail.com

Disclaimer: The viewpoints and arguments expressed in opinion columns are strictly those of the independent contributors. The South Sudan Times neither endorses nor rejects these views. We do not assume liability for the evidentiary accuracy of the author’s claims.