A report released Wednesday exposes a credit scam linked to South Sudanese officials. Businesses with connections to the ruling class, including President Salva Kiir’s family, were among those that received contracts collectively worth tens of millions of dollars. And the corruption scandal was a fact.
JUBA OCTOBER 7: A report released Wednesday by investigative group The Sentry exposes a billion-dollar credit scam linked to South Sudanese officials between 2012 and 2015. The Sentry is an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict.
Launched in 2016, The Sentry produces hard-hitting investigative reports and dossiers on individuals and entities connected to grand corruption and violence.
Between 2012 and 2015, the government of South Sudan received a credit line of nearly one billion dollars from Qatar National Bank (QNB) and CfC Stanbic Bank in Kenya to support efforts to import much-needed food, fuel, and medicine to the war-torn and newly independent country.
From the beginning, things went terribly wrong. The Sentry’s three-year investigation into the LCs program found that multimillion-dollar contracts were awarded to foreign-run companies, companies that only existed on paper, and inexperienced middlemen.
Businesses with connections to the ruling class — including President Salva Kiir’s family, the then-governor of the central bank Kornelio Koriom, and multiple military officials — were among those that received contracts collectively worth tens of millions of dollars under the program, according to official documents reviewed in connection with this investigation.
It appears that millions of dollars’ worth of essential pharmaceuticals, fuel, and food were not delivered.
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