Just outside South Sudan’s three-year-old capital, a stationary line of ancient Fiat and Bedford trucks are at the end of hundreds of dusty, rough kilometers from Kenya, bringing with them the cans of tuna, vegetables and soap on which the town depends. The last leg of the journey is to cross the one half of Juba’s bridge that still spans the Nile, but before they can enter town, the traders will have to pay again for the goods they already cleared through border customs. The South’s tax and investment laws, together with a mass of new legislation, are still being developed. In the meantime businessmen and traders are facing a complex and shifting set of costs especially in the form of multiple taxes. These, they say, are keeping costs of goods high and maintaining Juba’s reputation as Africa’s most expensive capital. On the other side of town trucks from Uganda
