Lol state governor dismisses money embezzlement allegation

Friday 26, 2016 (WAU) – The governor of the newly created controversial Lol state, Rizik Zackaria Hassan, has dismissed the allegation that he had stolen money from the state government when he was the governor of the former Western Bhar el Ghazal state before it was split into Wau and Lol states by the Presidential decree which created 28 new states in the country last October.

Hassan’s successor of the new Wau state, governor Elias Waya, said the former governor embezzled money from the state accounts. He also implicated Hassan’s finance minister, Lilian Valentino, for taking part in the theft of 5 million South Sudanese pounds (SSP) from the state budgets.

Speaking to Sudan Tribune on Friday, former governor Hassan, who is now the new governor for a breakaway state of Lol, confirmed that he took the money, but explained that he borrowed the money from the state budget which was used for constructing buildings of cabinet and state assembly.

“Yes I said when the governor said, these are mere allegations, yes we have borrowed money, we have borrowed 5 million from the national ministry of finance that was last year, and I remember that was in July. Then that money had been deducted and what remains now is 6,000 [SSP] and that money we paid the instalment of the construction of municipality and the state assembly and we did it in a consultation with the public, the council [of] ministers of the state and all the transfers were cleared across the South Sudan bank at the national level and in Wau where the amount was transferred to the contractors, that is about 5 million,” said Rizik Zecharia Hassan.

Hassan his former finance minister, Lilian Valentino, is currently pursuing a court case on the matter.

“The minister of finance now is establishing a case before the court because the governor has now spoiled the image of the government, my image and the image of the state finance minister and that is the way we would respond and second to that now in Wau, there are two buildings which are developed, from where did we mobilized the resources for that building, that is one case.”

South Sudan is marred by rampant corruption at both state and national levels, including the office of the president, which has a case in court of stealing of millions of United States dollars by his staff for over a long period of time.

(ST)