The U.S. Embassy’s New Year statement on South Sudan’s oil revenues, as reported by Jakony Media Agency, is presented as a principled appeal for peace, accountability, and social responsibility. Its call for the payment of civil servants, soldiers, and police recognises an undeniable reality: the state has failed to meet its most basic obligations despite possessing significant oil wealth. On the surface, the statement appears to align with the interests of ordinary South Sudanese citizens.
Yet precisely because the problem is neither new nor misunderstood, the statement’s restraint is its central weakness. What the United States frames as diplomacy reads instead as a familiar exercise in moral signalling – careful, non confrontational, and ultimately inconsequential for those who hold power in Juba.
The appeal avoids the core political fact behind South Sudan’s crisis. The non payment of salaries is not a technical failure or a lack of capacity. It is the result of entrenched corruption and a deliberate political choice by an authoritarian, highly centralised, and personalised regime. Oil revenues have flowed for years, but they have never been translated into public goods because accountability has been consistently resisted. By failing to name those responsible or identify the sources of obstruction, the U.S. collapses perpetrators and victims into a single moral space. This is a policy of moral equivalence, or selective morality. It is not neutrality, and it distorts reality.
Equally damaging is the statement’s absence of any coercive logic. The embassy speaks of “hopes” and “aspirations” without outlining conditions, incentives, or consequences. There is no reference to fiscal benchmarks, targeted pressure, or policy change should the status quo continue. For a government that has ignored similar international statements for years without altering its behaviour, such language has no deterrent effect. Power responds to cost, not courtesy.
The embassy’s call for oil revenues to be directed towards civil servants and public services is morally defensible. The government derives most of its income from oil, yet ordinary citizens see little benefit, while roads, schools, and hospitals remain unfinished. Still, it is highly unlikely that such an appeal will change a regime policy that has enabled more than a decade of plunder without reform.
President Salva Kiir’s governance record is defined by the diversion of oil revenues, elite predation, obstruction of the 2018 Revitalised Peace Agreement, and chronic neglect of public responsibilities. This reflects a political calculation in which regime survival and personal enrichment consistently outweigh long-term national development. Policies often appear reasonable on paper but are rarely implemented in practice. By 2022, more than 60 per cent of South Sudan’s oil production had already been committed to debt repayment through opaque, oil-backed loans.
Documented personal enrichment by President Kiir, his family, and close allies—among them the U.S.-sanctioned former Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel—combined with these loans, shows that resource diversion is deliberate and politically driven. Even international legal judgments have failed to change this pattern. These include the 2024 arbitration ruling in the United States awarding Qatar National Bank around $1 billion, and the 2025 case filed by African Export-Import Bank in the United Kingdom over an unpaid $657 million debt. Symbolic pressure has not produced meaningful reform.
These entrenched patterns were further exposed by a United Nations commission report released in September 2025, which documented systemic corruption at the highest levels of government. The report detailed how political elites siphoned off billions in oil revenues at the expense of public services and development. It described an unprecedented level of corruption orchestrated by President Kiir, his family, and close allies. One example cited was the misallocation of about $2.2 billion under the “Oil for Roads” programme between 2021 and 2024. Of this, roughly $1.7 billion was channelled to companies linked to Benjamin Bol Mel for road projects that were never completed, leaving only a small fraction for actual infrastructure or public benefit. This pattern shows how public resources are systematically diverted into politically connected networks rather than used to serve citizens.
South Sudan’s government depends largely on oil revenues and has diverted this income for years through opaque oil-backed loans and fraudulent, state-linked contractors. The regime has absorbed billion-dollar arbitration awards and targeted sanctions without undertaking serious reform. The pattern is clear. The continued failure to pay salaries is not a capacity issue, but the intentional outcome of corrupt political governance. This raises a simple question: on what evidence should anyone believe that a non-conditional U.S. appeal, without benchmarks, costs, or enforcement, will achieve a different result now?
That question is left to readers to consider in light of the evidence.
The United States has significant financial, diplomatic, and geopolitical influence that it could use more strategically if it chose to do so. As one of South Sudan’s largest donors, Washington has tools that could alter the regime’s calculations. Instead, the statement casts the U.S. as a benevolent observer rather than an engaged actor. This cautious diplomacy avoids confrontation and preserves access, but it also signals predictability. Predictability, in turn, allows entrenched systems to remain unchanged. In this space, countries such as Uganda, China, and Russia have expanded their influence, enabling Juba to discount Washington’s careful approach.
Some critics argue that stronger U.S. pressure could disrupt humanitarian access, destabilise the region, or overestimate Washington’s leverage. These concerns are valid. However, experience shows that conditional aid, targeted sanctions, and coordinated multilateral engagement can be calibrated to protect civilians while maintaining regional partnerships. After twelve years of largely unconditional support, elite corruption has only deepened. Restraint has not reduced risk; it has allowed unchecked consolidation of power. Carefully designed measures could impose political costs without undermining humanitarian operations or regional stability.
Most importantly, the statement misreads the nature of change. South Sudan’s government routinely blocks reforms that threaten its grip on political, judicial, and economic power. The shift from aid dependence to investment-led growth imagined by the embassy cannot occur without political reform. Investors respond to strong institutions, the rule of law, and credible governance, not goodwill statements. Treating reform as a matter of encouragement rather than enforcement creates the illusion that structural change can occur without political cost. For ordinary South Sudanese, this approach amounts to silent complicity.
The embassy’s call is not wrong. It is necessary, but insufficient. Its language reflects a long-standing pattern: stating what is morally right while avoiding actions with real political consequences. President Kiir’s regime understands this well and has absorbed similar messages for years without change. There is little reason to expect a different outcome now. If Washington is serious about South Sudan’s future, it must move beyond moral appeals. This means combining conditional aid, targeted sanctions, and coordinated multilateral pressure to make accountability politically costly. At the same time, the United States should deepen engagement with Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and other regional partners to counter Uganda’s destabilising role and support peace, governance, stability, and accountability across the country.
Duop Chak Wuol is an analyst, critical writer, and former editor-in-chief of the South Sudan News Agency. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado and focuses on geopolitics, security, and social issues in South Sudan and the wider East African region. His work has appeared in regional and international outlets including AllAfrica, Radio Tamazuj, The Independent (Uganda), The Arab Weekly, The Standard (Kenya), The Chronicle (Ghana), Addis Standard (Ethiopia), Sudan Tribune, and others. In 2017, Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation highlighted his analysis of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s role in Ethiopia’s economic transformation. He can be reached at duop282@gmail.com.
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