Sacked S. Sudan oil entity workers demand reinstatement

June 12, 2018 (WAU) – More than 20 former staff of South Sudan’s oil company (Nilepet) are demanding that they be reinstated to work.

The staff, mainly working at the depot, were sacked last week.

Nilepet management, in a letter Sudan Tribune obtained, instructed the staff to stay home until a “refinery kicks off soon as scheduled”.

Emmanuel Deng Gordon, a Nilepet supervisor of a retail outlet who was also served with the letter, suspects nepotism at the oil entity.

“He [branch manager] has appointed a number of new staff after us and they were not given probationary periods,” Deng said Tuesday.

“I want to make it clearly to the managing director and the board of directors to look into our matter seriously. Let him be concerned about the [staff] of Wau depot and retail outlet,” he further stressed.

Nilepet was established in 2003 under the Civil Authority for New Sudan (CANS) to link the oil companies with CANS, the then civil government in the liberated areas of South Sudan. The state-owned company was incorporated on 1 June 2009 under the New (South) Sudan Companies Act 2003 by the Ministry of Legal Affairs and Constitutional Development.

In March, the UK-based campaign group, Global Witness accused the leadership in South Sudan of using revenues from Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet) to fund the war.

South Sudan got the lion’s share of the oil when it split from Sudan in July 2011, but it’s only export route is through Sudan, giving Khartoum leverage and leading to pricing disputes.

(ST)