Lakes state finance minister to appear before parliament over corruption charges
January 24, 2012 (RUMBEK) – The Lakes state parliament have summoned the minister of Finance, Trade and Industry Pur Chiengan Dakbai to appear before parliament this week to answer accusations of mismanagement of public funds and not implementing planned developmental projects in the state.
Lakes State Legislative Assembly had earlier summoned Dakabi to answer questions in earlier in January but Dakbai declined to report, arguing that he was not given enough notice to prepare himself.
Dakbai denied any claims of corruption leveled against him.
He said: “The word corruption is a very big word. The corruption people talk about is the issue of how people manage resources. People do not know how to measure accountability – people do not know how to keep records and people do not know how I manage this”.
He said the lack of capacity to manage resources coupled with the improper reporting systems constitutes a major challenge to the state government institution.
“The problem is that people do not have the capacity to measure corruption. Even corruption itself, people need to have the capacity to measure it. Here, people do not have any capacity to do anything. So, the corruption is that sometimes you can buy things like these chairs in this office and you do not have records of how much you used”.
Since it was established over 5 years ago South Sudan’s Anti Corruption Commission has not prosecuted or sucessfully investigated any official despite it being widely acknowledge that graft is seriously affecting the development of the new country.
(ST)