In South Sudan, “anything goes”, as per the rules of corruption

By The Sudan Today *

April 14, 2007 — Since our first issue in July 2006, there have been positive developments in Juba. Indeed, the Sudan Today can claim that its ground-breaking, albeit clandestine anti-graft campaign is finally beginning to partially pay off.

Many of our readers in Juba and Khartoum have written back to share their observations on how our factual revelations in the previous issues had rocked the corruption cartel to their heels.

According to a Sudan Today privy in Juba, our previous dossiers caused politicians to squirm in shame and embarrassment as they read despicable graft-tales of unprecedented scale. And in a desperate attempt to ward off accusations and deflect attention, Arthur Akwien Chol employed shabby tricks to dismiss his Undersecretary Isaac Makur along with other five officials in the Ministry of Finance in Juba. Arthur was ill-advised by Justin Yaac, who was then on his way to South Africa for medical treatment. But before his departure to South Africa, the ailing Septuagenarian had realized that public outcry over the scandal of the stolen money could turn into a legal and media firestorm that might engulf every crooked Minister involved in the on-going looting spree in Southern Sudan. Hence, the duo contrived this strange notion of shifting the blame to Isaac Makur who, they thought, would be a jelly-fish. The plan, however, tuned out to be ill-conceived as Isaac Makur proved not to be the jelly-fish that they thought he was. Much to his credit, Makur – the jelly-fish- stretched his bones in all directions on Arthur’s throat, making it hard for Arthur to swallow or even chuck out his mouthful.

Although Arthur and Justin had been Ministers since their thirties, little did they know that civil servants cannot be dismissed without any probe into the charges leveled against them. It was therefore a remarkable blunder to assume that Isaac Makur could be accused and dismissed without the due process of law. And so instead of incriminating others, Arthur ended up tying the rope on his own neck.

Serious financial crimes

The issue of the inflated invoices for 300 land cruiser vehilces sold to the Government of Southern (GoSS) by Cardinal Company of Ashraf Sidahmed and Martin Malwal, and which has now led to the suspension of Arthur, is not and should not be the main issue. Indeed, this case is too trivial compared to other financial crimes that Arthur has committed during his 19-months tenure in the Ministry of Finance. There is a lot more to be revealed and if President Salva Kiir is indeed committed to fighting corruption, then a thorough investigation should be opened into oil revenue accounts of the Government of Southern Sudan.

Judging from our own evidence, it is our conviction that the damage done by Arthur and company to the people of Southern Sudan is incalculable. For example, our records show that GoSS received a total of 1.5 billion dollars during the year 2006. The table below illustrates this point clearly:

GoSS Total Oil Revenue Share (Jan-Nov 2006), (Million US$)

In addition to the above revenues, Oil Revenue Stabilization Account for 2006, (ORSA) shows that GoSS had a balance of 30 million dollars. If this amount is added up to $ 900.2, then GoSS should have accrued a total of 1.5 billion in just one year. This is not to mention the entire GoSS oil revenues share for 2005, much of which was stashed to private accounts in Kenya, Uganda, France, Australia, Khartoum and Dubai. The only bit of information known to the public about the 2005 GoSS money is the highly dramatized issue of 60 million dollars. However, credible evidence shows that 300 million dollars went missing between Arthur and company. This story, which was first reported by the Sudan Today in September 2007, has now been confirmed by the World Bank (Please see World Bank report on GoSS, January 2007 obtainable from GoSS).

But let us put the 2005 story aside and focus on the 2006 revenues which totaled 900.2 million. Where has this money gone? Or how has it been spent?

Again, looking at figures, our records will show that GoSS direct expenditure during the entire 2006 stood at just US$ 32, 21 million. The spending was as follows:

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According to financial documents obtained by the Sudan Today from Arthur’s Ministry in Juba, the financial statement from Jan. to Nov. 2006 stood as follows:

Many observations can be made from the above tables. First, it is clear that huge sums are being stolen right in Khartoum by bogus organizations. Consider for example: Youth Organization for Peace; prison food; Health Ministry; Electricity; letter of Guarantee (to whom?)etc.

2- Direct responsibilities of the Central Government such as Higher Education are still being shouldered by GoSS.

In short, the so-called Direct Expenditure of 32, 21 million is nothing but money siphoned from GoSS by way of racketeering. The actual money that went to GoSS was 770.71. It is from this money that GoSS paid salaries and allocated budgets to the various ministries and state governments. But the question that must be asked is: Is it true that more than 700 million dollars has gone on salaries in just 11 months? What happened to the budgets of the ministries?.

An attempt to answer the above questions will show that much of the money was spent on phantom (fake) projects that do not exist on the ground. We will only mention two of them:

There is something called Awiel-Mairam road project. This project is a major source for siphoning millions of dollars from the coffers of Southern Sudan. The project was coined up in October 2005 by the Arthur Akwien –Aldo Ajou racket, while Garang Deng Aguer, the chief felon of the group, acted as the market frontier. Readers of Sudan Today will recall from our previous issues that it was Arthur who granted Garang a letter of guarantee to the tune of 300 million dollars. This money is now being deducted every month by Khartoum from the oil revenues share of GoSS. For instance, throughout the year 2006, transfer documents show that GoSS lost 15 million dollars in deductions on this project. According to documents in our possession, deductions were made on 1/7/2006, 17/8/2006, 30/9/2006 and 1/11/2006 respectively. Moreover, 80.6 million was deducted from GoSS on December 31, 2005. Whoever doubts the authenticity of these figures should officially contact the Ministry of Finance in Juba to request financial statements for the fiscal year 2006. If there were a real parliament in Southern Sudan, then it should not be difficult to discover this massive fraud called Aweil-Mairam road. Since October 2005 to December 2006, Southern Sudan lost 95 million dollars to this phantom project.

Some US$ 200 millions more will still be lost within the coming two years. The big question that should now be asked: Did the people of Southern pay their precious blood, only to enrich thugs like Aldo Ajou, Arthur Akwien and Garang Deng Aguer?. Can President Salva be brave enough to order an investigation into this fraudulent project?

(2)Another classic case of these phantom projects is the case of the CEC Company of Italy which has been awarded the US$ 70-million roads contract in Juba city. In fact, it would be unfair to call CEC an Italian company because if it were truly Italian, there would be roads today in Juba. For Italians are world-renowned for their technology and perfection in roads construction. No one can therefore be fooled that CEC is an Italian company. The truth is that CEC is a nonsensical brief case firm ran by a certain Eritrean lady called Ganat. Again, we would have no qualms if this company were indeed a property of the friendly government and people of Eritrea, who will always be remembered for their steadfast stand alongside the Sudanese people in their quest for freedom and justice. But the CEC is entirely a different story.

Historically, the CEC – a company with hardly any profile- suddenly appeared in Juba when news of the looting spree in Southern Sudan began to spread like wild fire within the business communities across the region. As news of the bonanza continued to reel, lady Ganat showed up in Juba and, in a matter of days, she laid her hand to a US$ 70 million contract from the Ministry of Transport in the Government of Southern Sudan.

This contract, awarded in early 2006, was typical of how Southern Sudan is nowadays shooting itself on the foot. It was awarded without any public bidding; no competition, and not even a porthole of transparency. Worse still, lady Ganat overcharged and cheated Southern Sudan to the fullest. For instance, it is well known in East Africa that road construction companies charge between US$ 350- 450,000 per a kilometer. But in Southern Sudan, “anything goes” as per the rules of corruption. And therefore it was only natural for lady Ganat to charge one million dollar per one kilometer. Hence, according to her calculation, the 70 kilometer roads identified by GoSS would cost a total of 70 million.

This obviously overpriced deal was not only approved, but lady Ganat also got an advanced payment of 14 million dollars. With such incredibly huge bonanza, she flew to Nigeria to kicks-tart a failing project that she had started earlier.

As she boarded the plane at Juba airport, lady Ganat must have laughed all the way back to Nigeria at the foolishness of Southern Sudanese!

As things stand today, Juba is still without roads because this company has failed to deliver. According to this clumsy GoSS contract, the company is suppose to hand over phase one by July 2007 but they will certainly fail twice as much. And yet again, no one is expected to hold them accountable or responsible because in Southern Sudan, “anything goes”, as per the rules of corruption.

It should be remembered that this project is paid for by the GoSS, not by international donors as was promised after the singing of the CPA. It is to be recalled that the World Bank has refused to fund roads projects in South Sudan because of rampant corruption exemplified by the CEC and other phantom companies. Because the construction of 70 km internal roads is a direct GOSS project, the government appointed a Kenya-based consultancy firm, GIBB Africa, as consultants for the project. But when the consultants voiced disapproval on the progress of the project, lady Ganat laughed them off in the face and set up her own consultancy firm called Mongolia which acted as airport consulting firm. To add insult to injury, this very GoSS awarded another multi-million contract to lady Ganat for the extension of Juba international airport!. And at a time when lady Ganat’s stories are on everybody’s lips in Juba, two remarkable developments happened: One, in response to public outrage over the failure of her company, lady Ganat has now sub-contracted two Khartoum-based companies to implement the roads projects in Juba. Who is behind these Khartoum-based companies is there for everyone to guess! Two, the biggest bombshell is this: Lady Ganat is now officially the regular supplier to the SPLA!

What on earth is so magical about this lady? Could it be her kinky walk and talk that infatuates “Comrades” to forget the widows of their fallen comrades? Can’t the SPLA commanders get the widows of their unsung heroes to form a company to do supplies to the SPLA? Or are these poor widows not kinky enough?

Action plan

We have shown through just two powerful examples how Southern Sudan is losing millions of dollars while children continue to die of malaria and other curable diseases. There are many such phantom projects and, behind them, there are many “hidden cows”, to use President Salva’s own words in one of his recent speeches. We therefore appeal to President Salva Kiir to put an end to this robbery and thereby salvage his own leadership as well as the international image of the people of Southern Sudan.

What is needed is simply an action plan to recover the stolen money and eventually put an end to more looting and racketeering. The solution is not to dismiss Arthur and Justin, or even throw them to lions to eat them up as Romans did with early Christians. The mantra is this: Yes to investigations; yes to dismissals; yes to detentions but even a bigger yes to recovery of the stolen money.

We applaud the President’s move to dismiss and detain any corrupt hidden cows, even in the army, as he did recently with Gen. Obote Mamur. Mamur’s enormous wealth had maddened him to the point of military insubordination. He clearly deserves an arrest if law and order are to prevail. However, it is absolutely unreasonable, unwise and unfair to single him out for corruption in the army when his other colleagues are showing off their newly stolen riches. A clear example of this is Major General Salva Mathok , who is now the talk of the town in Juba. In a meeting recently in Khartoum in the office of his business partner Dr. Abdul Haleem El Mutaafi, the Governor of Khartoum State; Garang Deng Aguer blurted a secret of how he obtained a 200-million contract from the SPLA through Salva Mathok. As there was no Southerner in the meeting, Garang felt free to confirm to his associates that General Salva Mathok “is my man in the SPLA”. Oh God!. Isn’t Southern Sudan a land of absurdities? For how can Garang Deng Aguer, who is a member of the National Congress Party, a close associate of Aldo Ajou and Dr. Mutaafi of the NCP , be awarded such a huge contract and in a sensitive institution like the SPLA?

Juba gossip corner

1-Martin Malwal Arop recently tried to laugh off accusations of corruption on which he is being investigated along with Arthur Akwien and Ashraf Sidahmed.

“Despite this investigation, GoSS still has full confidence in me. Recently, I got a multi-million contract for the construction of one of GoSS ministries”, exclaimed Martin, much to the surprise and disappointment of those who attended the chat.

* The Sudan Today is a dossier for Truth and Transparency. It is compiled by watchdogs in Juba and Khartoum. The group can be reached at [email protected]