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biggest food importers from Uganda. demarcated by colonial powers, whether right or wrong.
South Sudan imports several manufactured goods, including “Fortunately these Europeans are not like Africans. They are
textiles, capital goods and other services from Uganda but fond of writing. Anything they do they write. So there are
infrastructural challenges have remained an issue in the nascent documents. Even these quarrels you are having with Khartoum
country. about your borders, the documents are there. So, I don’t see

The booming trade between the two countries is affected by why people are wasting time,” said the Ugandan leader.
numerous taxes levied on traders, resulting in high commodity He added: “Certainly if you read the constitution of Uganda,
prices in South Sudan. at the back there is a schedule which is quoting those colonial
However, from the words of Museveni, this is bound to change documents and I’m sure at the side of South Sudan, they must
for the better. “I came by road. The road was so good…and be using the same document. There are no problems at all. The
I saw a lot of vehicles on the road and that shows the trade is villagers are just wasting their time. So I told the Kuku elders
booming. And I talked to H.E Kiir that we should send spies that they should go back and refer to their grand children
quietly to know whether border officials are taking bribes. It’s because the border is not their business. They should leave
important that these people cross
without being disturbed,” said
Museveni.
“If there are some taxes to be
paid, its paid quickly so that if I
come from Juba to Gulu I should
go without being delayed and
vice-versa; so that is why I came to
see my brother,” he added.
The other challenge affecting the
relationship between Uganda
and South Sudan is a border
dispute with the neighbouring
communities in South Sudan’s
Kajo-Keji County and Uganda’s
Moyo district having disagreed on
their border areas. In 2010, the President Yoweri Museveni (Left) with President Salva Kiir Mayardit (Right)
situation called for intervention in Juba in December 2012. [Gurtong | Waakhe Simon Wudu]
of the national governments of
both countries. At the time, the leaders met in Moyo in an it for the surveyors to sort out.” The community leaders and
attempt to sort out the dispute. A number of resolutions were elders of the two areas have to find a way of cooperating and
made but none has been implemented. “There is no problem working peacefully for the good of the people as the borders
with the border,” Museveni responded when asked on what remain to be identified. President Kiir also visited Uganda on
is being done to resolve the dispute. “The other time when I 13 January 2013 in the company of some national ministers
went to President Salva near Moyo, I found some villagers had among them Hon. Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the minister
gathered. We said what are these villagers for? We were told for Information and Broadcasting; Hon. Oyay Deng Ajak, the
that these were elders from the Kuku tribe and elders from the minister for National Security; and Hon. Kosti Manibe, the
Madi tribe of Moyo. Then we told them that borders are not minister for Finance and Economic Planning to explore ways
the business of elders because they have no role to play. The of strengthening the existing bilateral ties between Juba and
borders are business of the surveyors,” Museveni said. Kampala.
According to Museveni, African leaders met for the first time
in Addis Ababa in 1963 and agreed borders should remain as

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