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Everything changes to remain the same? State and tax reform in
South Sudan
Rens Twijnstra and Kristof Titeca
The Journal of Modern African Studies / Volume 54 / Issue 02 / June 2016, pp 263 - 292
DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X16000033, Published online: 13 May 2016
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022278X16000033
How to cite this article:
Rens Twijnstra and Kristof Titeca (2016). Everything changes to remain the same?
State and tax reform in South Sudan. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 54,
pp 263-292 doi:10.1017/S0022278X16000033
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Everything changes to remain the
same? State and tax reform in
South Sudan*
RENS TWIJNSTRA
Wageningen University, Special Chair for Humanitarian Aid and
Reconstruction (HAR), P.O. Box AA, Wageningen, the
Netherlands
and
KRISTOF TITECA
Antwerp University, Institute of Development Policy and Management
(IOB), Prinsstraat ,B- Antwerp, Belgium
Email: kristof.titeca@uantwerp.be
ABSTRACT
South Sudan is in a unique combination of (post)-conflict reconstruction and
the birth of a new state in which old policies are re-activated and new policies
introduced. By looking at three case-studies of taxation and private sector regu-
lation reforms, the paper will show how the overlapping and often contradictory
regulatory frameworks of the state provide the setting for bricolage strategies by
different actors. These actors, and particularly state officials, rely on a variety of
institutional resources to implement, resist or remake certain regulatory mea-
sures. Although the breadth of regulatory measures has increased exponential-
ly, the institutional corridor –the space in which bricolage is performed and on
which various actors can rely –remains narrow. This space is contingent on
wartime authority structures, and more particularly pre-existing Sudan’s
* The authors have contributed equally to writing this article. They would like to thank the
following people: Prof. Thea Hilhorst of the Special Chair for Humanitarian Aid and
Reconstruction (HAR) Wageningen University; the anonymous reviewers; Mollie
Gleiberman. The research described in this article was financially supported by the Dutch
Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the IS Academy for Human Security in Fragile States Grant
[Act number , Contract number DEK].
J. of Modern African Studies,,(), pp. – © Cambridge University Press
doi:./SX
People Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) power structures, as well as a
deep-rooted resistance to centralised control. Importantly, these regulatory
practices are not fixed: intense periods of rearrangement of the social order
or ‘open moments’may provide a window of opportunity for regulatory reform.
INTRODUCTION
Between and southern Sudan witnessed one of Africa’s
longest conflicts. In January , following a six-year interim period sti-
pulated by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of , a ref-
erendum was held to decide whether the southern region would remain
as a semi-autonomous region within the Sudan or separate completely
and gain independence as Africa’sth fully recognised state.
Following a ·% popular consensus to separate, South Sudan
gained its independence on July . This not only meant that
post-conflict reconstruction could continue –a process started after
the Peace Agreement –but also that a new state came into exist-
ence. South Sudan’s recently acquired independence and its lack of a
consistently formalised state regulatory framework does not, however,
imply that it started with a ‘clean slate’. As Thomas Bierschenk
(:) highlights, African statehood is path-dependent, and its bur-
eaucracies best resemble ‘never-finishing building sites’. This is clearly
the case for South Sudan, which may have inherited more laws, acts, pro-
visions and ordinances than most stable African countries. Due to almost
years of violent conflict and historically embedded resistance to cen-
tralised control (associated with attempts by repressive regimes to subju-
gate the South), the regulatory framework has become immensely
complex, overlapping and inconsistent. In other words, South Sudan wit-
nessed a unique combination of post-conflict reconstruction and the
birth of a new state, in which old policies were re-activated, new policies
introduced, previously considered non-state actors became state actors
(and vice versa), while donor agencies and international non-govern-
mental actors became increasingly involved in providing technical assist-
ance and ‘building’the institutional capacity of the state. In this context,
the breadth of regulatory measures has increased markedly, and state
officials are able to rely on a wide variety of rules and regulations –at
times contradictory –in attempting to pursue their interests. As will be
shown, these contradictory rules and regulations may allow state actors
to define one and the same practice as both legal and illegal. Under
these circumstances, not all regulations are applied and followed,
while some actors may be more successful in implementing or resisting
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
particular regulations. Put differently: a wide range of regulations, and
regulatory actors, are in place in South Sudan, but the mere existence
of these regulations does not mean that these will be applied and have
an actual effect. An important question that this paper sets out to
answer is: what determines which regulations are implemented and
accepted, and which other regulations fail to be implemented?
By looking at a number of taxation and private sector regulation
reforms in South Sudan from after the peace agreement, the
paper will show how the patchy, overlapping and often contradictory
regulatory frameworks of the state provide the setting for ‘institutional
bricolage’by a range of actors. While taxation and private sector regula-
tions are a clearly limited empirical focus, taxation is central to the func-
tioning (and building) of the state, and is instrumental in multiple
processes, from economic growth to the forging of social contracts
(Lough et al.:). It therefore offers key insights into the involve-
ment and interaction between state and non-state actors, and the
general functioning of the state and its interface bureaucrats.
Particular, but not exclusive, attention will be given to the interface bur-
eaucrat,
a person employed by the state
who is in direct contact with
the state’s‘users’and who plays an important role regarding the way
in which a rule or regulatory measure is implemented. In this respect,
the interface bureaucrat functions as an institutional ‘bricoleur’, who,
through appropriation, reconfiguration and amalgamation of an exist-
ing set of rules that individually retain their appearance as ‘state’
rules, becomes the master of state embodiment. In this process, the
lack of a coherent regulatory framework and overlapping formal narra-
tives do not hinder the functioning of the state agent, but actually enable
him to configure and signify his or her position as an agent of the state.
Importantly, the paper will show how this increased regulatory breadth
does not mean that different actors have absolute freedom in pursuing
their ‘bricolage’strategies. While this multiplication of rules and regula-
tions in theory allows a bewildering number of options and actions,
older practices of authority continue to play a dominant role in structur-
ing regulatory realities, particularly regarding taxation. Concretely, it will
be shown how pre-existing arrangements by the politico-military elites
dating back to both before and after the CPA play an important role in
shaping and reshaping regulatory practices at different levels of the
state bureaucracy. In doing so, regulatory measures will serve as an import-
ant lens to understand state-building and war to peace transitions.
This article is based on ongoing qualitative fieldwork conducted in
South Sudan since October up to July . Data collection
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
methods include content analysis of legal documents, news reports,
repeat interviews with a diverse group of over ‘interface bureaucrats’,
state officials that interact with citizens on a daily basis, as well as with ap-
proximately higher-level state officials in the County, State and
National levels of government. Furthermore, more than interviews,
a dozen focus group discussions and continuous qualitative (partici-
pant) observations were conducted among traders and the general
public on topics of taxation and insurance.
In the next section, we begin by describing the regulatory framework
of South Sudan, and offer an overview of the country’sfiscal regulation
system. We then provide the analytical background for the study and
introduce the concept of the ‘institutional corridor’, through which
we describe three case studies. This allows us to draw some general con-
clusions about bricolage and regulation.
A SPRAWLING COLLECTION OF RULES AND REGULATIONS
The South Sudanese regulatory framework for taxation and private
sector regulation is a haphazard amalgamation composed from three
main policy sources: older Anglo-Egyptian policies dating from before
; legislation enacted by successive regimes in Khartoum, which
was asymmetrically administered in the southern states (Benson
); and the provisional orders of the SPLA/M. To further compli-
cate the picture, a fiscal decentralisation trend –rooted in the SPLA/
M’s promotion of decentralised civil governance following the move-
ment’sfirst National Convention in Chukudum, in (Chol ;
Rolandsen ; Walraet )–has yielded a process of rejecting,
adapting, and/or composing new local tax arrangements in response
to national legislation. The result is the bewildering landscape of
South Sudan’s tax and business regulation system.
Furthermore (and typical for the early-recovery phase of a post-
conflict state), international donors and financial institutions have com-
pounded this pre-existing complexity by insisting on a torrent of aid-
conditional generic reforms. Since the CPA of , a number of
these reforms have led to new bills and acts, such as the Local
Government Act and the Taxation Act of . Not all the reforms
have passed; some were rejected by parliament, while others remain
tabled until further notice.
The tax regulatory framework does not stop here: since the semi-au-
tonomous government of Southern Sudan first presented its ‘Growth
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
Strategy’in late ,
there have been a series of policies, official com-
muniques and addresses issued by the central government in which
South Sudan’s private sector is heralded as the driver of economic diver-
sification, tasked with increasing domestic production (particularly in
the agricultural sector), and, most importantly, with increasing the gov-
ernment’s non-oil revenue tax base.
At the time of writing however, do-
mestic production and manufacturing were almost non-existent, and the
government’s only sources of non-oil revenues remain international aid,
foreign loans and international import taxation.
Not only is there a wide range of rules and regulations, there is also a
wide range of institutional structures, which have authority in taxation
and private sector regulation: due to its decentralised system of govern-
ance at three legislative levels (National, State and County) with corre-
sponding revenue raising powers,
national, sub-national and local-
level administrations retain their claim to tax these international
imports in one way or another. Historically rooted in South Sudan’s
asymmetric relationship with oppressive and exploitative centralised
regimes from Khartoum which conceived the South as a peripheral
backwater (Johnson ), this decentralised disposition of governance
imposed a heavy administrative burden that ‘sharply enhances the need
for revenue generation just to finance the administrative structure of
government at three levels’(World Bank Group : viii), thereby cre-
ating a precarious competition for revenues.
This institutional competition for revenues can be observed between
different levels of government, as well as between revenue authorities of
the different states and between the different counties within those
states. Since the main source of tax revenue in South Sudan comes
from taxing (cross-border) trade, a county or state’s geographic location
vis-à-vis an international border and its supply routes is key. Attempts to
address inequalities between States to raise their own revenue from
border-trade include the interstate taxation agreement
stipulat-
ing that goods in transit could be taxed at the international point of
entry, as well as at every subsequent State border. In addition, there
exists a persistent competition over revenue collection between different
levels of government; the national, the sub-national and the local.
Characterised as ‘complex, uncoordinated and unharmonised’
(Selassie :), the Government of South Sudan (GoSS)
Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations Task Force (IGFR) introduced a pro-
posal in late to align the multitude of different State taxes into a
common taxonomy and centralise it to the national level of govern-
ment.
Despite initial scepticism about the feasibility of such a proposal,
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
the centralisation of border trade taxation was implemented by the end
of against the backdrop of high demands by the central govern-
ment for non-oil revenues to cover the country’s budget deficit resulting
from the January oil-shutdown,
which deprived the young nation
of % of its revenues.
In sum, there are a whole range of administrative actors and regula-
tions, all of which have the authority to intervene in taxation, and
which often go in competition with each other. In the next sections,
we aim to explain how efforts to regulate taxation are being implemen-
ted and negotiated on different levels.
BRICOLAGE AND THE INSTITUTIONAL CORRIDOR
As the above section illustrates, South Sudan’s regulatory landscape of
taxation and private sector regulation are a far cry from being a coherent
formalised set of rules. As one regional South Sudanese trader noted,
and as will be shown in detail below, ‘We have so many rules, but
none that apply [the same way] to everyone. It all just depends [on]
who you know and what they can do for you …’
Major progress in
understanding the functioning of the state and the processes of regula-
tory authority, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected areas, has been
made by conceptualising the state as mediated (Menkhaus )or
negotiated (Hagmann & Péclard ) within broader non-state institu-
tional domains, producing a type of hybrid political order (Boege et al.
). One major implication of this view is that rather than labelling
such states as ‘failed’or ‘fragile’based on a Weberian ideal-type, re-
search and policy should focus on the strength of weak states
(Meagher ), working with the grain (Booth & Golooba-Mutebi
) of local institutional realities rather than against it. What all of
the aforementioned concepts have in common is that statehood and
everyday governance is the outcome of an on-going interaction –or ‘ne-
gotiation’–between state and non-state actors. Regulatory practices con-
stitute an important part of this negotiation, which as Bierschenk &
Olivier de Sardan () highlight, takes place between different
‘poles of power’which do not have equal power. As a result, the state
does not necessarily have a monopoly on regulation (Hagmann &
Péclard ).
In this literature, the main focus has been on negotiation between dif-
ferent poles of power on a macro- or meso-level, such as rebels and
traders (Raeymaekers ), the state and civil society organisations
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
(Raeymaekers et al.), the state and the church (Titeca & De Herdt
), and so on. By placing ourselves in this literature, we are able to
see how regulation, and taxation regimes are influenced by negotiations
over power and authority, in which different categories of actors –state
and non-state, local, national and international –are involved in pro-
cesses of ‘negotiation, contestation and bricolage’(Hagmann &
Peclard :). However, it is firstly important to mention that
these negotiations do not only happen between poles of power (e.g.
between churches and the state), but also within these poles of power,
a question which is largely neglected in this literature. The state is not
a unitary actor; for example, state officials at different levels and loca-
tions might have different competing interests, and the state as a pole
of power might itself be a site of negotiation. In this paper, we want to
analyse how the South Sudanese state in itself is negotiating its regula-
tory framework among its different levels and locations. Secondly,
these poles of power do not only exist, and negotiate, on a macro- or
meso-level (the church, rebel groups, the state, and so on), but also
on a micro-level: local-level individual actors play an important role in
the negotiation of the regulatory framework and the day-to-day govern-
ance of the state.
This is also, or particularly, the case in South Sudan, where state actors
play an important role in the application of the state regulatory frame-
work and in defining how statehood itself is negotiated. From the per-
spective of the ‘interface bureaucrat’in South Sudan –the tax
collector, the revenue official, or the clerk at the licensing office in
the central bank –this wide array of inconsistent and overlapping rules
provides a diverse toolbox of institutional devices with which he can
configure his position vis-à-vis his ‘users’, and through which he is poten-
tially able to declare one particular action at the same time legal or
illegal, depending on how he wishes to use this particular toolbox.
Although one may be tempted to assume a large degree of agency on
behalf of the interface bureaucrat, in reality the space for improvisation
and selective application of rules is limited by a number of factors, which
can be explored using the literature on institutional bricolage.
The concept of bricolage was introduced by Lévi-Strauss, and he
broadly defined it as ‘making do with the resources at hand’(Lévi-
Strauss :; Miner & Bassoff :). Resources can take a
variety of forms: acquired skills, social contacts, financial resources and
so on. ‘Making do’refers to the ‘continuous combination, re-combin-
ation and re-deployment of different practices, organizational forms,
physical resources, and institutions’(Mair & Marti :).
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
‘Bricoleurs’continuously try to cobble together solutions by looking
through their available resources which constitute the ‘rules of the
game’(Lévi-Strauss :; Berk & Galvan :).
Frances Cleaver (:) introduced the concept of institutional
bricolage to specifically refer to ‘mechanisms for resource management
and collective action [that] are borrowed or constructed from existing
institutions, styles of thinking and sanctioned social relationships’.By
using this term, she highlights how individual action is characterized
by both agency and structural constraint: they are ‘conscious and uncon-
scious social agents, deeply embedded in their cultural milieu but none-
theless capable of analyzing and acting upon the circumstances that
confront them’(Cleaver :). Cleaver gives the example of
water management in Zimbabwe, where people consciously draw on
and adapt existing norms and mechanisms for new purposes, while at
the same time, pre-existing customs and practices confer new arrange-
ments with the legitimacy of ‘tradition’(Cleaver :). In doing
so, bricolage implies an active assembling of particular parts (norms,
values and arrangements) to suit a new purpose which involves ‘both
a conscious scrutiny of some beliefs, and an unconscious acceptance
of others in the formation of institutions’(Cleaver :).
Applying these insights to our case-study, this has several consequences
highlighting this tension between agency and broader structural
constraints.
The first is that the state official is still bound by the rules he chooses to
apply; interface bureaucrats rarely ‘make up’rules or simply ask for
money without any justification. This is very clear in the examples
below where officials legitimise the taxes they collect or the rules they
apply by referencing various legal texts of the state such as the
Constitution, a county ordinance or a state law, informal as those taxes
might actually be. In this respect, the interface bureaucrat is truly an in-
stitutional bricoleur: one who can improvise a creative solution by using
pre-defined components by which he is constrained (Cleaver ), and
in which the possible outcomes are predicated on ‘what’s available’in a
setting that he/she did not create or control (Lévi-Strauss ). When
the bricoleur is an agent of the state, his or her toolbox contains a het-
erogeneous set of formal regulations that emanate from ‘the state’, pro-
viding each individual rule with an authoritative power vis-à-vis the
‘users’, even when such practices are actually outside the domain of
the state. In other words, the power the official wields to legitimate his
practices is derived from the formal discursive language of the state.
This argument is in line with the literature about hybrid governance
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
(Titeca & De Herdt ; Meagher et al.) and the notion that state
institutions (and their language) are not redundant in a context of state
fragility or failure, but become locally anchored and enmeshed with infor-
mal non-state institutions (Titeca & De Herdt ;Cleaveret al.).
The second factor that limits the selective application of rules by the
official is what we refer to as the ‘institutional corridor’. In similar
fashion to Sehring’s comparative analysis on institutional reform, the in-
stitutional corridor comprises
the context for the implementation of the reform, the main actors, inter-
ests, power relations, institutional setting; this is not a catchall phrase for
all societal phenomena but is restricted to those institutional arrangements
that influence the implementation in the field under consideration, the in-
stitutional corridor the implementation process has to go through. (Sehring
:)
In other words, the institutional corridor refers to the actual available
options for bricolage, or the space which allows actors to modify pre-
existing institutions. Moreover, instead of referring to the general struc-
tural circumstances, the term institutional corridor specifically refers to
the political space through which institutional reforms pass, and in
which powerful authoritative resource are located.
Applying this concept to the situation in South Sudan, it becomes ap-
parent that a context in rapid transformation does not necessarily
present a situation where institutions are completely in flux and easily
changed. Path‐dependent continuities play an important role, often
rooted in pre-existing institutional arrangements. In South Sudan,
many of these continuities are embedded in SPLM/A power networks
and in local-national power plays that pre-date the signing of the CPA
in . The institutional corridor in South Sudan (i.e. the range of
options the institutional setting leaves for interface bureaucrats’
choices), is in fact quite narrow, as will be demonstrated in the following
cases. There is, nevertheless, some space for actors to modify these path-
dependent continuities. These can be changed in what we referred to
above as ‘open moments’(Lund ) in which the social order is re-
arranged.
The third factor limiting the selective application of rules is the fact
that institutional bricolage is not ubiquitous among different bricoleurs,
as the position and by extension the toolbox of each individual actor
varies. In other words, not every bricoleur has equal bargaining power.
This power is largely dependent on the number, and power, of authori-
tative resources which are allocated to, and mobilised by, the actor.
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
These authoritative resources can take various forms: they can be
financial power, or power through access to political or kinship networks
(Cleaver :–; de Koning :–).
In the next sections, we will look at two cases in which reform was
appropriated and/or subverted through processes of bricolage to re-ef-
fectuate pre-existing arrangements, suggesting that the institutional cor-
ridor was very narrow. A third example will be provided to indicate that
under certain circumstances change is possible through an ‘open
moment’that can broaden the institutional corridor and allow for sign-
ificant reform to aggregate.
COUNTY AND STATE TAXATION OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE
We will start by analysing the bricolage practices of county tax-collectors
from Magwi County in Nimule, the largest border crossing in terms of
traffic of people and goods in South Sudan, located in the Eastern
Equatoria State (EES) (see Figure ). Nimule thrives off international
trade flows, and prior to the aforementioned Customs and taxation
reforms implemented in mid-, there were as many as different
authorities to consider when crossing the border,
ranging from
Customs to Immigration, from the Bureau of Standards to county tax
collectors, and from the Eastern Equatoria EESRA to the Commerce
and Supply import license authorities. The presence of these actors
leads to a bewildering number of taxes. Not all of these taxes are effect-
ively implemented, and some of these taxes can be legal and illegal at the
same time. The so-called ‘Gibana’
tax illustrates this process well. This
tax was introduced between and in many counties in South
Sudan: some imposed the tax simply on domestic goods transiting
through a county (Selassie :), others levied it as a local excise
tax (Solomon & Bell ). In the case of Magwi however, the Local
Government Council proposed something else: considering its geo-
graphic advantage of comprising several major border crossings, it
levied the tax at the border directly upon entry into South Sudan
and therefore gave the tax a very different application than elsewhere
in South Sudan.
Importantly, up to the time of writing, this proposal has never been
passed by a legislative body. Notwithstanding, Gibana tax has been and
is still being levied in a relatively uniform way across all four border cross-
ings in Magwi County: our field research shows how in practice, all county
tax-collectors at the border levy a %ad valorem County tax on the value of
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
goods being imported into South Sudan by local traders indigenous to
Magwi County, on the condition that these traders do not move beyond
the County borders.
In exchange, the local traders are exempted from
paying cross-border taxes to the national government.
As explained by
one of the EESRA officials stationed at the Owinkibul border crossing in
February ,‘Gibana is just a a local tax between these local Magwi
traders and the County. They get exemption from the rest because they
just move within here [Magwi County] …It is only us [the EESRA] and
the County who collect from them.’
When we asked officials about the
legal basis of this tax, we found that many
cite the Local
Government Act
(although this bill does not specify what this tax
Figure The Republic of South Sudan, with its southernmost border town
of Nimule and the State Capital of Eastern Equatoria State, Torit.
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
exactly entails), or the transitional constitution which states that ‘Local gov-
ernments shall have powers to levy, charge, collect and appropriate fees
and taxes in accordance with the law’(RSS Legislative Assembly :
Article ,clause). When we visited the much smaller and remote
Poge border crossing in Magwi County in early ,weobservedthat
the county tax collector had photocopied and framed the relevant pages
of these two texts, and displayed them on the wall of his small office. As
another County official explained in November ,‘This constitution
is for all the South Sudanese …[As] an independent nation we can
collect our own taxes, even the Gibana is there.’
In other words, a
wide variety of legal references are invoked to implement this tax.
However, an equal amount of legal references could be used to declare
this tax illegal. As demonstrated above, it has not been officially passed
by the local government council, nor does it feature in the County
budget.
In addition, levying Gibana on international border trade is in
violation of the taxation act that stipulates only national and State-
level authorities can impose taxes on international border trade
(GovernmentofSouthSudanb). In other words, the County inter-
face bureaucrats collecting taxes are openly selective about which rules
they choose to use and what rules they omit from their day-to-day practices.
But how is it determined what rules can or cannot be used to collect
these taxes that are ‘state’in their appearance but clearly ‘non-state’in
their practices, since there was no record of Gibana tax in the County
treasury, and they are at the same time illegal? In other words, what is
the power base of the County official’s ability to successfully engage in
these bricolage practices?
We distinguish three authoritative resources that played an important
role in the County officials’ability to collect this ‘illegal’tax. The first is
rooted in pre-CPA SPLM/A practices along the same border whereby
traders were taxed using percentage charts issued by local SPLA com-
manders between the mid-s and as part of a trend to boost
the Movement’s decentralised civil governance capabilities. As early as
, local SPLA authorities carried a laminated chart of ‘customs’
rates for the greater Equatoria Region (before the establishment of
the states) which is the basis for today’s% Gibana tax collected by
county interface bureaucrats (as well as a number of other border
taxes). On two occasions during data collection, taxation officials pre-
sented these same laminated cards that they were still using to legitimise
the taxes being levied, something which was also confirmed by other re-
search.
In this manner, local officials have reproduced wartime
SPLM/A practices by appropriating aspects of post-CPA legislation.
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
The second authoritative resource employed by officials entails the
element of enforcing rents through ‘consultations’with the local com-
munity. Before the CPA, the region now known as Magwi County was
rife with armed groups with which the SPLM/A had to compete for le-
gitimacy among the local populace. All groups imposed their burdens
on the local communities through taxation, plunder, and (forced) re-
cruitment. One of the outcomes of the SPLM convention was
that SPLM/A commanders were expected to invest more in community
relations, providing some rudimentary level of civil administration and
actively involving the local communities in decision-making processes
regarding how taxes were to be negotiated and administered. As one
local trader who had been active in trading medical supplies across
the border during the conflict in the late s noted: ‘After ‘,
Dr John Garang was telling the SPLA to discus with us about exemption
[from taxation] for medicines; we were even trading with them more
[than before] …’.
In a similar fashion, the present-day Gibana tax
levied by county officials was set at % through a consultation meeting
with the local chamber of commerce, which represented indigenous
traders who had voiced concerns and protested the tax increases
levied by officials between and . The chairman of the local
chamber of commerce described the process as follows:
When more of us [local cross-border traders] started coming back [from
exile in Northern Uganda] and doing business in Magwi, taxation was too
much …Then they called for a meeting. Those of Torit [EESRA] were
there, even the County and the Payam collectors had to be there. That is
when they agreed Torit would take % and the County would take %.
This ‘formalisation’of tax collection into a set figure of % was wel-
comed by the traders who felt their concerns had been taken into
account, signifying a degree of ownership in the formalisation of the in-
stitutional arrangements of the state, and also signifying the relative
power of the traders: tax collectors could not simply impose random
taxes on the traders. As one trader noted: ‘Yes, it [the % Gibana
rule] is good! We cannot just pay whatever they say, it has to be calcu-
lated from the bill.’
A third authoritative resource relates to justifications for the deliber-
ate evasion of national legislation prohibiting local government
officials from levying taxes on international border trade. This prohib-
ition features in a wide range of agreements: for example, the CPA,
the Interim Constitution and in the Taxation Act, all of which
forbid local governments to levy ‘border trade charges’. The County
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
tax officials however overcame this legal discrepancy by relying on the
legal authority of the next level of government in the hierarchy, the
Eastern Equatoria State Revenue Authority (EESRA). This State govern-
ment has effectively sanctioned the levying of Gibana. This arrangement
was made during the same meeting in referenced above with the
local chamber of commerce, whereby the State and the County
revenue officials agreed to a –% split of the taxes levied upon
local traders. As one of the EESRA officials explained:
We normally collect the Torit [Eastern Equatoria State capital] taxes from
traders at the border in Nimule. Some percent[age] of that money is
given to all the Counties, so indirectly they also receive [tax] revenues.
But they [the Counties] don’t believe we are sending them all [that] they
are supposed to receive. …[I]nstead we agreed that for those local local
traders we will collect %, instead of that % we were collecting before,
and now they [County tax officials] can collect that % directly from
them.
This arrangement signifies a long-standing practice (pre-dating even the
SPLM/A convention) in local civil administration, whereby nation-
al level measures or commands can be circumvented by sanctioning the
evasion through the next-highest level of authority –in this case, the
state governments. In other words, because a state government is institu-
tionally closer to a local government than to the national government,
national legislation is more easily evaded on the basis of states’permis-
sion. Under these circumstances, distance and proximity are important
authoritative resources: the national government is more distant than
the state-level government, whose capacity of legalising particular
actions holds more power than the national government.
In sum, although particular taxes are illegal from a national perspec-
tive, the sub-national actors involved creatively relied on a number of
resources to enact their legality. In analysing these authoritative
resources, we gained a better idea of the institutional corridor on
which actors can rely. The high level of path dependency in these
resources is important: they are largely pre-CPA SPLM/A practices
that determine which elements were appropriated into local practices,
and which were rejected. This is further elaborated in the next case
study.
INSURANCE INDUSTRY LICENSING PRACTICES
The second case-study relates to regulatory reform in one of the fastest
growing industries in South Sudan in which there is an increasing
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
involvement of regional and global competition: the insurance sector. As
both private and corporate demands increase to insure property, freight,
the wellbeing of one’s employees, third party liability and more, regional
and global insurance companies are starting to establish themselves in
Juba and in several other state-capitals throughout South Sudan.
These multinational firms compete with two other categories of insur-
ance providers for local market share: locally established insurance com-
panies and local branches of insurance companies that formerly
operated in South Sudan from Khartoum. At the time of writing,
there were four international firms operating in South Sudan (three
of which were operational), three Sudanese companies (which had
been operated in South Sudan from Khartoum before independence,
and were in the process of changing their license), and seven local
companies.
The regulatory framework for the insurance industry in South Sudan
is confusing to say the least; since the supervisory authority shifted from
Khartoum to Juba in late , it has been a challenge to establish pro-
visional working modalities. Strictly legally speaking, the regulation of
the insurance industry in South Sudan is contingent on the Insurance
Act of , which was signed by the then chairman of the SPLM, Dr
John Garang de Mabior (Stitt ). Although it was termed an ‘Act’
it was more of a provisional order, meaning that it still had to be
endorsed by an elected legislature. After the signing of the CPA in
, this endorsement was deprioritised and instead a new bill was
drafted in to replace the act. The formalisation of this bill
has been a protracted process since and remains tabled at the
Ministry of Justice awaiting endorsement by Parliament (Stitt ).
In reality, while the insurance sector is governed by certain aspects of
the Act, other aspects are provisionally borrowed from the
draft bill, and in some cases neither of the two is applied. The Central
Bank of South Sudan (BoSS) has been designated as the regulatory au-
thority, although government officials emphasise that this is a temporary
measure.
The BoSS lacks both the proper legal grounds to regulate the
industry and the resources and capacity to do so, even if the bill is
passed.
Additionally, the close relationship between the BoSS and
the national government has raised concerns about a conflict of interest,
since the government is a majority shareholder in at least two of the in-
surance companies active in South Sudan.
As this brief overview of the regulatory framework for the insurance
sector suggests, there are in fact many rules and regulations that can
be used to govern access by international corporations, which are
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
beyond the legal text of the (pending
) new insurance bill. For the
interface bureaucrats –more particularly the officials within
the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP) and within
the Bank of South Sudan (BoSS) tasked with registering services,
issuing permits, licenses and conducting audits with service providers –
this lack of transparency creates the ideal circumstances to hand-pick
the rules as they see fit to further their interests. As this article argues,
however, this bricolage is by no means arbitrary but is strictly governed
by a narrow institutional corridor.
Insurance in South Sudan itself is a relatively new phenomenon.
Public awareness about insurance is very low and is concentrated
among returnee communities that repatriated from urban settings in
East Africa, Khartoum, Cairo and the West. One of the major difficulties
that international insurance firms encounter in South Sudan is the lack
of confidence and understanding by the general public.
This resonates
with findings from focus group discussions conducted in four major
urban hubs in South Sudan
which showed that a majority had no
knowledge of the insurance services provided in South Sudan at all
and had never been insured to their knowledge. The only type of insur-
ance that most people were familiar with was the compulsory rd party
liability insurance needed to register a vehicle or motorcycle in South
Sudan. However, the notion that an insurance company would pay
claims to the insured remained largely absent.
As a result, most South Sudanese, including business owners and
traders, regard insurance more as a compulsory tax. Since this ‘tax’is
administered by companies with branches located within the traffic
police departments responsible for issuing vehicle registration and
number plates, they are often seen by the public as semi-governmental.
The companies (mostly local, including formerly Khartoum-based
firms) represented at traffic police stations provide insurance for very
low premiums but with a remarkably low settlement rate.
Consequently, most people will opt for the lowest premium since the
prospect of reaching a settlement is extremely unlikely.
This practice causes concern for the international firms whose services
are tailored to a more informed public that may choose to pay a higher
premium for better coverage and reliable settlement schemes. They
regard the low premiums offered by local companies as unfair competi-
tion, since they would never be able to offer such low premiums whilst
offering the quality services and reasonable settlement rate that their
international reputation is contingent upon.
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
In , three
of the international firms used the Insurance
Association –a business forum under the South Sudan Business Forum
(SSBF) –to voice concerns about an upcoming insurance bill. They
insisted that the bill include, among other things, a stronger regulating
authority that would conduct audits annually and compulsory licensing
with high capital requirements.
The licensing through capital require-
ment was considered a crucial aspect of the bill, since it would determine
the type of players active in the market and subsequently influence the
public’s perception of –and trust in –the industry’s integrity.
One of
the international firms’managing directors noted: ‘Especially in a
setting where the insurance market is in its infant stages and general
awareness about insurance is very limited, it is important to set the
right precedence.’
When the BoSS began issuing licences for insurance companies in
South Sudan in , it selectively applied an entry capital requirement
of US$.million: the licensed international firms were forced to abide
by the requirement, but the local companies were somehow exempted.
However, when the bill was drafted in , the capital requirement had
been reduced to just , South Sudanese pounds –approximately
US$, at the official exchange rate
or times less than the
bank was (officially) requiring at the time.
This dramatic decrease
incited concern and protest from the three international firms who
had actively lobbied for the US$.million threshold. Around the
same time, in , a fourth major international insurance company
was in the final stages of obtaining an operating licence in South
Sudan from the BoSS, for which the capital requirements were set at
US$.million with an additional % security deposit.
In other
words, very different capital requirement rules were being applied for
international and local firms. Apart from this inconsistent application
of capital requirements, the supervisory authority’s proximity to govern-
ment and the current lack of resources further contribute to a grim
outlook for reform: officials within the BoSS as well as within the
Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP) have openly
stated that such reforms are not feasible with limited resources and
staffing.
This case demonstrates that even if the proposed reform is implemen-
ted, the supervisory authority will certainly not be able to enforce it.
The legal ambiguity of the capital requirements, especially, provides
interface bureaucrats in the licensing department of the BoSS with the
ideal conditions to circumvent this reform. An important factor in
explaining this situation lies again in pre-CPA SPLM/A practices. The
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
dominant political movement has historically made use of private sector
firms, such as insurance companies and foreign exchange bureaus, as
resources to reward service in the movement before the signing of the
CPA. South Sudan’s economic governance remains predicated on pre-
CPA practices, characterised by the creation, seeking, distribution and
utilisation of rents along a logic that has colloquially been termed the
‘big tent’strategy, i.e. buying off loyalty from a broad and vastly hetero-
geneous range of actors within South Sudan’s political marketplace
(De Waal ;Garang).
Insurance companies are also used in
this strategy: most of the local insurance companies, as well as the local
branches of the firms formerly operating from Khartoum, are owned
by SPLA veterans and their close relatives who accumulated significant
political capital through their loyalty and sacrifice during the war. A
number of informants from within the insurance sector explained
that since these former commanders and their families were not able
to benefit from any type of pension plan after the signing of the CPA, al-
ternative pensions were awarded by means of shares in local SPLM-
owned firms or licences to operate, among other possibilities, a foreign
exchange bureau or an insurance company. ‘It is a way to keep the com-
rades happy …[T]o reward them for their sacrifices …But it is not busi-
ness.’
Or, in the words of a senior branch manager at a newly
established insurance company (which had branched off from a
Khartoum-based firm) during an interview conducted in April :
Many of us [local insurance companies] are not interested in these other
kinds of insurance, like life, health, or property insurance. …[W]e deal
only in the one that is compulsory [mandatory rd party liability insurance
for vehicle registration]. This is steady income that will always be there, this
is what they [the owners of the insurance companies] want; they are not
interested in doing business. Most of them are too old for this …some of
them, they cannot even read or write.
In other words, local insurance companies have little interest in other
insurance products, since many of these companies are primarily a
rent distribution mechanism for the SPLA/M elite. The delay and insti-
tutional ambiguity of the current efforts to regulate the insurance indus-
try are better understood in relation to the advantages for SPLA/M
actors intent on preserving this informal rent distribution system.
Similar to the previous case of state officials subverting tax reform, the
actors involved in insurance reforms have little incentive to enforce reg-
ulations or pass reforms in a timely manner. The institutional corridor
has been narrowed down by pre-existing arrangements, which prevent
reform efforts from aggregating in any meaningful or consistent way.
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
AN OPEN MOMENT FOR CUSTOMS REFORM?
As the previous two examples have indicated, the space for reform in
South Sudan appears to be quite limited. The toolboxes of the different
political and administrative bricoleurs –such as interface bureaucrats or
insurance companies –comprise an array of heterogeneous regulatory
arrangements, suggesting a large degree of freedom and space for insti-
tutional reform and innovation. However, the underlying arrangements
appear to be quite rigid and fixed along the lines of pre-existing power
configurations. The high degree of path-dependency bodes ill for effect-
ive reform, suggesting that the institutional emergence of the state is, in
fact, merely a façade behind which older practices continue to be
reproduced.
This assumption, however, would be misguided on the premise that
the examples above illustrate a context that is relatively stable. Local
practices evolve gradually, since national reform progresses slowly and
interface bureaucrats must adjust their appropriation, contestation or
subjugation of reform into local realities within a relatively fixed frame
of informal networks. However, to this perspective of gradual structur-
ation must be added the notion of ‘open moments’(Lund :).
These are ‘… occasions when the social rules and structures are sudden-
ly challenged and the prerogatives and legitimacy of politico-legal
institutions cease to be taken for granted’(Lund :). For political
elites, ‘open moments’may offer a double-edged possibility of reasser-
tion or erosion of power, or, as noted by Bastiaensen et al. such
moments may also provide the momentum for the elites to ‘open a
window of opportunity to grant greater political leeway’(Bastiaensen
et al.:).
In the case of South Sudan, we argue that when the institutional
arrangements that delineate the institutional corridor come under
stress from power struggles within the politico-military command struc-
tures of the SPLM/A surrounding a particular event, such a window of
opportunity may present itself.
In early , the government of South Sudan shut down the coun-
try’s oil production, as a result of a deadlocked negotiation process
with Sudan over oil transfer fees through the pipeline to northern
Sudan. At this point, South Sudan effectively lost % of its revenues,
which was expected by many to result in economic collapse. The
World Bank argued that it ‘has never seen a situation as dramatic as
the one faced by South Sudan’.
Considering that the government’s
main source of revenue after the oil rents was from taxes levied on
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
imports, reforming the South Sudan Customs Service became a national
priority in a matter of months.
Previously, customs interface bureaucrats based their conduct on a
number of practical norms at the border in relation to the traders
(Twijnstra et al.), in which not all traders were charged equally.
The most striking manifestation of this unequal treatment was the allo-
cation of ‘tax exemptions’that were often formally sanctioned by
officials within the ministry of Finance and Economic Planning
(MoFEP) in Juba. These formal exemptions provided duty-free clear-
ance for certain traders or certain loads altogether. Acquiring a letter
of tax exemption from the MoFEP was a procedure initially reserved
for humanitarian agencies, but also became accessible for large-scale
traders who were involved in multiple government procurement con-
tracts in . Based on statements by Customs Director Fredrick
Lokule, media sources
report that tax exemptions in early may
have amounted to million South Sudanese pounds per month
(c.US$ million). Although such estimates are ambiguous since
recordkeeping was highly inconsistent at this time, it illustrates how a
small group of traders and their counterparts in the MoFEP and
SPLA/M elites benefitted from the weak regulatory framework for tax
exemption.
In this way, the trade sector, and particularly trade supplies to the
public sector, had become a source of self-enrichment for SPLA/M
elites or for actors with close ties to these elites. After the oil-shutdown,
customs revenues were to be collected from all traders, irrespective of
who the trader was or the nature of his/her connection to the SPLM/
A. All prior tax exemptions were revised by presidential decree, as
noted in the Public Financial Management Action Plan Progress
Report for November –June :
During the planning and budget process for the / fiscal year, there
has been an emphasis on greater political engagement. …[A]n Austerity
Measures Committee (AMC) was empowered by Presidential Decree to
decide austerity budget ceilings …[and to] streamline and regularize the
process of granting exemptions and provide transparent reporting on
exemptions …’ (Government of South Sudan MoFEP :,)
Moreover, according to sources within the National Customs Service at
the border in Nimule, as well as within the local branch of Commerce
and Supply from MoFEP, a substantial number of officials were
replaced.
This was corroborated by observations that within six
months after the oil shutdown, at least ten of the officials working in
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
these offices in Nimule who had previously been interviewed for our
study had been reassigned to Juba or to other posts across South
Sudan. Furthermore, donors assisted by providing consultants to imple-
ment a computerised system to monitor revenues, and the security
forces at the border were instructed to monitor the conduct of
customs officials. As a result, within six months after the oil shut down,
customs revenues at the Nimule border crossing had allegedly increased
by ,% compared with .
Confirmed by interviews with more
than different large-scale cross-border traders,
the room for nego-
tiation with customs officials in Nimule had been reduced dramatically.
This reform did not seem to be temporary; unlike previous reforms,
which were only implemented briefly, customs rates remained fixed,
and relatively transparent and registered. One of the most affluent
traders interviewed for this study noted:
Usually when the government acts it is harsh and short-lived, things go back
to the way they were within weeks. At the border it’s different, things have
changed permanently. But it’s not because of those consultants,
it’s
because the oil money is gone and they need income. At the border, they
comply because the future of the SPLM depends on that revenue.
What this example indicates is that at a time when the survival of the
state –or,moreprecisely,theconfiguration of the political marketplace
in a way that is relatively stable and appears monolithic –was threatened,
space for reform was created. This ‘open moment’had the effect of almost
instantly breaking open the institutional corridor, which had remained
narrow under the stable context of abundant oil rents that kept customs
revenues from becoming a priority. The national reform was effectively
implemented and aggregated into the institutional corridor.
In this respect, the top SPLM/A leadership’s ability to defy Khartoum
and legitimise the oil shut-down reveals an authoritative resource far
more powerful than those described above, such as the primacy of
local arrangements over national legislation. One could argue that the
success of the Customs Service reform lies in the fact that the formal
content of the reform was synonymous with the most important authori-
tative resource to effect institutional change in South Sudan, namely ex-
plicit resistance to northern pressure.
CONCLUSIONS
By discussing a number of case-studies on taxation and state reform in
South Sudan, this article has shown how the space for regulatory
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
reform is quite narrow: the institutional corridor is contingent on pre-
existing SPLM/A power structures, as well as a deep-rooted resistance
to centralised control. As these two elements constitute the most power-
ful institutional resources at stake, they need some more elaboration.
First, the paper has shown how different bricoleurs have different
resources at hand. For example, the international insurance companies
have a more limited institutional toolbox: they can rely on the Insurance
Association, but this proves to be a weak resource when compared with
the resources on which local insurance companies can rely. More gener-
ally, SPLA/M power structures play an important role. At the national
level, international donors and international insurance companies
have shown themselves to be incapable of influencing the regulatory
practices of the insurance sector. These practices mirror existing
power relations and structures of authority in which the international
actors clearly have much less leverage than national actors; decision-
making is largely monopolised by SPLA/M actors with an interest in
maintaining a situation of ambiguity. Also illustrated in the first
example, local-level county interface bureaucrats rely on a variety of in-
stitutional resources in which various (unspecific) legal references play
an important role, as well as past SPLM/A practices of taxation. Yet,
the example also shows how officials do not have unlimited power:
analogous to how the SPLM/A acquired their local legitimacy for tax-
ation before the CPA, county officials had to compromise with the
traders, who were able to contest these practices. This compromise in
turn became an important resource in legitimising an illegal tax. In
other words, processes of reshaping and reinventing are not linear,
but involve a constant negotiation and contestation between different
‘authoritative actors’around particular issues (Cleaver ). It is im-
portant to mention that this process is nothing new: during the war,
the SPLM/A itself was not a uniform or coherent institution, but
rather a circumstantial and haphazard amalgamation of rapidly chan-
ging local and regional interests that provided a platform for local
elites to pursue their own objectives. These practices, however fragmen-
ted and localised, nevertheless had a profound impact on regulatory
practices at various levels, as described throughout the paper.
A second important issue determining the institutional corridor is the
disparity between national policies and local implementation. This is a
result of the large distance which existed during the war between the na-
tional state and the sub-national levels, as well as between the SPLA/M
leadership and the lower ranked commanders on the ground. This is
clearly shown in the first example, which shows how national-level
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
policies are subverted by local (county and state) actors through a cre-
ative re-combination of different legal processes. In other words, while
a whole range of new measures are taken at the national level (often
under pressure from international donors), these often have a limited
impact on the lower levels of government. Particular measures are intro-
duced, and can in reality be used by different levels of the state, but their
power is limited; it has been shown that these measures have not
reached their original objective, instead leading to a further fragmenta-
tion of the formal regulatory space, which does not fundamentally
impact the institutional corridor.
These conclusions are not only limited to South Sudan, but speak to
more general discussions about state reform in post-conflict states.
More specifically, it offers insights into how post-conflict governance is
characterised by a simultaneous expansion and contraction of the regu-
latory space.
On the one hand, while recent literature on statehood in Africa has
shown how statehood is profoundly negotiated
, this literature also
shows how negotiation is not consistent, as particular periods are charac-
terised by stronger negotiation than others. Periods of conflict, but also
of post-conflict reconstruction, are highly contested periods through
which there is increased room for negotiation and political redefinition.
These are periods of rapid political and social change, during which a
multitude of actors enter the negotiation arena.
In addition to the
state, which tries to re-establish its regulatory authority, new actors,
hoping to capitalise on social and political capital accumulated during
the conflict, and international donors looking to engage in post-
conflict reconstruction also enter the arena (Hagmann & Péclard
:–). On the other hand, post-conflict reconstruction does
not only expand the negotiation arena, but is itself path-dependent on
previous governance practices. The literature on war economies, in par-
ticular, has shown the existence of a large degree of overlap between
periods of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction, as ‘political and eco-
nomic interests and agendas pursued through war are typically carried
over into peacetime’(Cramer :; Titeca & de Herdt ).
This holds true for regulatory practices in general, as wartime regulation
continues to impact on the post-conflict situation. In other words,
post-conflict governance is characterised by a simultaneous expansion
and contraction of the regulatory space.
In line with these insights, this paper has shown how there was a clear
expansion of the negotiation arena in South Sudan, as a wide range of
regulatory measures were introduced and numerous actors became
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
involved: intense negotiations took place between traders and the state
(in the first and third case-study) and between foreign insurance com-
panies and the state (in the second case-study). Yet, the most important
interactions have taken place within the state: our cases, which illustrate
taxation practices at different levels of the state (national, state, and
county level), show that intense negotiations take place between differ-
ent categories of state actors. Central to these negotiations is a profound
legal ambiguity: a wide range of rules and regulations are at the disposal
of state officials. These rules at times contradict and overlap, allowing
contradictory interests to be represented –certain practices can at the
same time be declared legal and illegal. As a result, the way in which tax-
ation –and the state as a whole –is being governed is necessarily patchy
and the regulation of taxation in South Sudan has a distinctly plural
character. This does not mean that taxation is not being organised,
but it does signify that certain rules and regulations are more successful
in regulating behaviour than others.
At the same time, a contraction of the regulatory space takes place in
South Sudan, as certain rules and regulations are more successful in regu-
lating behaviour than others. This is related to the ability of different
actors to engage in processes of bricolage, which –as we have shown –is
shaped by relations of power (Cleaver ) and the institutional corri-
dor. The cases described above overwhelmingly show the large continuity
of wartime practices in the post-conflict state. New actors might enter the
institutional arena –such as international donors or international insur-
ance companies –and try to influence decision-making in a particular dir-
ection. But, despite the potentially transformative role of these measures,
wartime relations of authority and patronage persist, through which the
institutional corridor remains quite narrow (Sehring ). In other
words, the pervasive ambiguity of formal institutional arrangements
does not suggest that bricolage is arbitrary; our examples clearly show
that these practices take place in ‘an already established network of
power and representations’(de Certeau :), which both limit
and enable these practices along path-dependent logics. These dynamics
have been demonstrated for a number of domains in South Sudan, such
as border security (Schomerus & de Vries ), foreign policy (LeRiche
&Arnold), land governance (Badiey ,), local governance
(Leonardi ), and so on. All of these show the large continuity of
wartime practices in the post-conflict state, or how ‘a peacetime project
is run as a wartime project‘(Schomerus & Titeca ), and how
various categories of actors are able to function in these circumstances.
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
Importantly, we have shown how these pre-established networks, rela-
tions of authority and patronage and the practical norms they repro-
duce, are not entirely fixed. When an event occurs that precipitates an
‘open moment’–an intense period of rearrangement of social
order –these institutional arrangements are also in flux. A severe eco-
nomic shock like the oil shutdown constitutes such an open
moment, which may provide a window of opportunity for certain
reforms to be implemented that under previous circumstances would
have been circumvented or appropriated differently to simply repro-
duce a previous status quo. It also must be noted that this open
moment is not a catch-all phenomenon that describes the general
ability of the state to overcome a legacy of ambiguity and entrenched
patterns of local interest and behaviour. In this specific case, we have
shown how an elite cadre of decision makers have intervened, allowing
reforms to take place. Strategies that were used included the forceful re-
placement of a number of interface bureaucrats that had been instru-
mental in upholding previous practices, as well as leveraging the
interests and resources of external actors (donors and consulting agen-
cies) to enforce a more stringent and computerised system of registering
revenues. In line with the overall patchy and negotiated character of the
regulatory space, these strategies did not necessarily take place in a coor-
dinated or structural way, but were effective nonetheless.
NOTES
. As explained by Bierschenk, ‘interface bureaucrats’are state officials that have a direct inter-
face with the ‘users’of state administrations (Bierschenk :), in many ways analogous to Lipsky’s
‘street-level bureaucrats’(Lipsky ), which we have chosen not to use as the term ‘street level’
may wrongfully suggest that the interaction is limited to a particular locality and may intuitively
omit interactions taking place within the Ministries or the Central Bank. Nevertheless, the two dimen-
sions of () a low-ranking state official, () in direct contact with clients are the same in both
definitions.
. The administrative layers of government in South Sudan include the National Government of
South Sudan, the ten federated State governments, Local County governments, ‘Payam’govern-
ments and the lowest administrative unit, the ‘Boma’governments.
. For a copy of the final draft that was released in January , please visit: http://pdfoiocn.
org/k-.html.
. Other examples of this include the Investment Promotion Act of (Government of South
Sudan c), the South Sudan Development Plan ( Government of South Sudan ), and the
more recent passing of the South Sudan Agricultural Bank Bill. See: http://www.gurtong.net/
ECM/Editorial/tabid//ctl/ArticleView/mid//articleId//Agricultural-Bank-for-South-
Sudan.aspx.
. As enshrined in the Power and Wealth Sharing Protocols of the CPA, as well as in the Interim
Constitution and the Local Government Act.
. Referenced in six different interviews with National Customs Service officials in Nimule and in
at least three key informant interviews conducted with officials from the GoSS Ministry of Finance
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
and Economic Planning (MoFEP) between October and December . Also see: http://
www.southsudannation.com/taxation-and-decentralization-in-south-sudan/
. In practice, this proposal was required to adhere to a ‘hold hostile’principle of appeasing the
demands of the State Governors, State Ministers of finance and revenue authorities in exchange for
their cooperation. This entailed simply keeping hostilities with the different state authorities at bay by
calculating the share of centralised tax revenues that would be redistributed among the states on basis
of estimates prior to centralisation, not by population or income. In essence, this proposal would re-
produce the status quo of revenue inequalities between the states in a more formalised manner.
. Many State governors displayed an open reluctance and distrust towards the initiative. See:
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article. In addition, sources within GoSS MoFEP
mentioned that most states did not record their collected revenues in a unified way, posing an
even greater administrative challenge for the proposal.
. After the South seceded from Sudan in July it inherited the majority of the old united
Sudan’s oil reserves. However, the South has no refineries and the only pipeline for export runs
through Sudan. When the contentious negotiations about transit fees failed in mid-February, the
South unilaterally decided to shut down all oil production. This resulted in a % loss of government
income, a % decline in GDP over the rest of and months of severe austerity measures. At
the time of writing, oil production had recently resumed and is expected to be back at pre-shutdown
production capacity by .
. Interview conducted in Juba in June .
. For a detailed account of the range of state actors and different categories of traders involved
in negotiating border taxation practices in Nimule, please see Twijnstra et al. ().
. Colloquial Arabic for ‘Jibu le ana’meaning ‘give to me’, formalized in the local government
act section []E.
. According to two different members of the Magwi Local Government Clouncil (interviews,
conducted in Magwi town, March ), this tax arose out of concern that shop owners would not
be transparent about their annual revenues and also because the budget allocated to Magwi
County from the Eastern Equatoria State government was diminishing in and .
. This practice of a %ad valorum County tax was confirmed and narrated identically by all eight
County officials interviewed at the various crossings at different times, as well as by all + local traders
interviewed subsequently between February and December .
. This arrangement was confirmed and narrated identically by all state and non-state
interviewees.
. A GoSS Commerce and Supply Official summarised this in November in the following
way in Nimule town: ‘[T]hese small local guys, they don’t pay Customs. They just move within
Acholiland [and] when they cross the border, they pay some little gibana to the County and to the
State.’
. Such as multiple sources within the County administration including the Executive Director,
and the Commissioner representing the Local Government Council. Interviews March .
. Section [] E (Government of South Sudan a: ). For example, multiple sources
within the County administration including the Executive Director, and the Commissioner represent-
ing the Local Government Council, were referring to this act. Interviews March .
. Interview conducted at Magwi County headquarters in November .
. Based on interviews with the Magwi County Executive Director and the Director of Accounts in
November .
. By Directorate of Intelligence, United States Central Intelligence Agency [Public domain], via
Wikimedia Commons.
.A World Bank study reported this same schedule being used by a Customs official at one
of the border crossings in Central Equatoria State (World Bank Group :).
. Interview conducted in Nimule, December .
. Interview conducted in Magwi town in April .
. Interview conducted in Nimule, December .
. Transcript from Focus Group Discussion conducted with EESRA officials in Torit on March
.
. This section is primarily based on interviews with executives of eight insurance companies in
South Sudan between April–November . It has also been supplemented with other interviews,
which are mentioned throughout the section.
. Confirmed during interviews with officials from the Bank of South Sudan (BoSS) and from the
MoFEP conducted between January and May .
RENS TWIJNSTRA AND KRISTOF TITECA
. Interview with the Director of Supervision in the Bank of South Sudan (BoSS), May .
. Interview with the project consultant coordinating the Insurance Association at the South
Sudan Business Forum (SSBF), May .
. Still pending at the time of writing in mid-.
. Interview with executives of three multinational insurance corporations in Juba, South Sudan,
June .
. Juba, Wau, Bor and Malakal.
. Focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted with insurance consumers in Juba town, Malakal
town, Bor town, and Wau town, November .
. These concerns surfaced during interviews with senior management staff representing UAP
Insurance, New Sudan Insurance, National Insurance Company (NIC) and Britam Insurance
Company, all conducted in May and June .
. The fourth and latest insurance company included in this study was not yet operational in
.
. Interview with the project consultant coordinating the Insurance Association at the South
Sudan Business Forum (SSBF), May .
. Interview with the project consultant coordinating the Insurance Association at the South
Sudan Business Forum (SSBF), May .; also confirmed during interviews with senior management
staff of leading insurance companies in May and June .
. Interview with MD of one of South Sudan’s largest multinational insurance firms, May .
. Due to a range of economic and political reasons that are beyond the scope of this article, the
difference between South Sudan’sofficial exchange rate and the going ‘black market’rate for South
Sudanese pounds against the US dollar can be as much as three times. At the time of writing in mid-
,theofficial rate was .SSP to US$, while the going rate fluctuated between and SSP to US$.
. A copy of the initial draft bill was obtained for this study through the South Sudan
Business Forum (SSBF) within the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Supply in June .
. Confirmed within the Insurance unit at the BoSS and by executives of the new multinational
firm residing in Juba while its licence was still pending.
. Cited in interviews conducted with the Director of Supervision in the Bank of South Sudan
(BoSS), and with two interface bureaucrats responsible for issuing insurance licences within the
BoSS-IU (Insurance Unit) in May .
. This was particularly the case between and (Twijnstra ).
. In at least eight interviews with employees and management staff with four different insurance
companies this explanation was referenced (one local insurance company, two companies formerly
operating from Khartoum and one international company). In addition two different state-level
bureaucrats at DG level in Upper Nile and in Jonglei State also noted the profile of ownership of
these insurance companies. Informants within the BoSS and MoFEP did not disclose this
information.
. Interview with South Sudanese analyst in Juba, June .
. Excerpt from interview transcript with branch manager from one of the major nationally
owned insurance companies in South Sudan, conducted in Malakal in April .
. Much of the recent commentary on South Sudan’s current political crisis following the
December ‘attempted’coup follows a similar logic (de Waal ; Johnson ; Pinaud
), but in our analysis we focus on earlier events that took place almost two years before the
current conflict re-ignited: the January oil-shutdown.
. Noted in a leaked confidential memo from March from which the World Bank later
distanced itself.
. The Citizen Newspaper, March .http://allafrica.com/stories/.html;
Gurtong.net, March ,.http://www.gurtong.net/ECM/Editorial/tabid//ctl/Article-
View/mid//articleId//Customs-Exemptions-Affect-South-Sudans-Revenue.aspx.
. Interviews conducted in Nimule, October .
. Announced by Customs Service Director General Maj. Gen. Frederick Lokule speaking at the
World Customs Organisation in June .
. Conducted between March and September .
. Referring to the Crown Agents consultants providing technical assistance to the Department of
Customs in Nimule; Department for Internal Development (DFID), Support to South Sudan’s
Customs Development, p. .
. Interview conducted in Juba, August .
EVERYTHING CHANGES TO REMAIN THE SAME?
. As has been described by prominent authors from inside the movement (Nyaba ; Arop
), at times when pressure from Khartoum was exerted in such a way that it affected all factions
in the South, elites were able to overcome differences and form a relatively united front against
Khartoum, such as during the end of the – ceasefire when President Gaafar Nimeiry
declared all of Sudan (including the South) an Islamic state under Shari’a law. This event has
been described as creating the momentum for the establishment of the SPLA. Similarly to what we
argue at the end of the article, the ability of the SPLM/A and/or the South Sudanese state to
enforce reforms during such ‘open moments’is highly circumstantial, and should not be mistaken
as necessarily describing a consolidation of state power.
. Terms such as ‘governance without government’(Raeymaekers et al.), ‘twilight institu-
tions’(Lund ), ‘real governance’(Olivier de Sardan )or‘negotiated statehood’
(Hagmann & Péclard ) view governance as the outcome of complex negotiations between a
number of actors, groups and forces (Meagher et al. :).
. Arenas convey a sense of location of negotiation, within which statehood is negotiated in more
or less formalised or routinised ways (Hagmann & Péclard :).
. As we have argued, the dominant normative register that enabled this cadre of SPLM/A elites
to enforce these changes –whether structural or circumstantial –was a sense of unified defiance of
Khartoum.
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