Northern Bahr el Ghazal Anti-graft recovers government vehicle it claims was sold illegally

By Ambrose Achuil Garang

The Anti-corruption mission in South Sudan’s Northern Bahr el Ghazal has recovered a government vehicle it claims was illegally sold out.

The Toyota Landcruiser belonging to the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission was recovered from a trader in Wau.

According to Anei Rok, the Chairperson for the Anti-Corruption Commission in Northern Bhar el Ghazal, the vehicle was sold at 3.8 million South Sudanese pounds to the trader without following the proper procedures of selling out government properties.

“As the anti-corruption commission, we are mandated by the constitution to fight corruption and this is one form of corruption,” Rok told Juba Echo in Aweil.

The RRC has not followed the right procedures if they want to sell government asset they should first take this to the Government’s secretary general and we are also given a letter before approval but all these procedures were not followed, so we have confiscated the car yesterday in Wau and have returned it to Northern Bahr el Ghazal state.”

Rok said top RRC officials will face court charges over the issue.

TheRelief and Rehabilitation Commission confirmed selling the vehicle to the trader and insist proper procedures were followed.

“It’s true, we sold the car that was donated to us by the National Relief and rehabilitation commission but it is something we did legally, we sat among ourselves in the office, sent a request to our head office who gave us the car,” Dr Susan Madut who heads the commission told Juba Echo.

“We also didn’t have the capacity to repair the vehicle so we opted not to just keep the vehicle dormant, so we sold it and we have already purchased a new car which is on the way,” she said.

“We are ready to defend ourselves against this accusation.”