South Sudan: Present and Future

South Sudan has just turned 15. On Jeff Koinange Live, the country's Minister of Presidential Affairs, Hon. Africano Mande Gedima, sat down to discuss where the world's youngest nation stands, and where it is heading.

The government, he said, is now moving from a long transitional period towards elections. He was candid that the transition had been hard. A government with one president and five vice presidents drawn from different parties, he said, was heavy, costly and pulled in many directions. In his words, South Sudan had been "a guinea pig" for a model of government never tried in the region, one that political scientists will study for years.

He reflected on the gap between the dream and reality. Those who fought for independence believed everything would be "a bed of roses," he said, and were caught off guard when civil war broke out over personal ambitions for power. Yet the centre of government never collapsed, and the vision of independence kept the country going.

On the region, Gedima said more than 50,000 Kenyans live and work in South Sudan, alongside Ethiopians, Eritreans, Tanzanians and others. That, he argued, says a lot about the opportunities there, despite the country's reputation for risk. He described regional integration through the East African Community as essential. South Sudan has kept some of the lowest tariffs in the region on purpose, he explained, to bring in East African goods while its own production is still low.

He also spoke about the next step: moving from exporting crude oil to building refineries and a more balanced economy that trades with its neighbours on their strengths. For Kenyan businesses already in Juba, that future matters.