WASHINGTON, United States
The Sentry on Monday published a massive trove of data exposing the control by the family of South Sudan President Salva Kiir over a secret business empire.
“Kiirdom: The Sprawling
Corporate Kingdom of South Sudan’s First Family,” provides a deep dive into the
first family’s private capture of assets across South Sudan’s major national
economic sectors including petroleum, mining, banking, trade, aviation, logistics,
and private security.
The Sentry is an investigative
and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks
that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy.
According to a press statement
extended to Radio Tamazuj on Monday evening, the exposé published on The
Sentry’s new interactive Atlas platform, “Kiirdom” combines extensive
documentation from the South Sudan Ministry of Justice with the findings from
numerous original investigations by The Sentry.
John Prendergast, Co-Founder
of The Sentry, said that since independence, rather than work toward a secure
and prosperous future, the Kiir regime has orchestrated destabilization,
repression, violent conflict, and mass starvation while consolidating a lucrative
corporate empire.
“The first family has deployed
an array of circumvention techniques to veil from the public their businesses
and assets,” he stated.
“Kiirdom” provides the full
scope of collected data plus expert analysis in a freely available and
interactive format.
“The Sentry’s new open-data
platform, Atlas, illuminates the business empires, facilitators, and financing
mechanisms of global networks of kleptocrats, conflict financiers, and war
profiteers. Atlas functions as a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of a kleptocracy,
aiming to facilitate public scrutiny, transparency, and accountability for
these elites and their enablers. Said Michelle Kendler-Kretsch, Investigations
Manager for The Sentry. “By providing an interactive visualization tool,
easy-to-use search, expert analysis, and detailed profiles of individuals and
entities, Atlas empowers journalists, policymakers, financial institutions, and
the public to hold those responsible for large-scale violence and grand
corruption accountable. Atlas projects are designed to be dynamic, enabling us
to nimbly combat corruption through regular updates.”
Based on the 126 companies
mapped by The Sentry, the corporate network of Kiir’s family includes
high-profile businesspeople and politicians from around the region, as well as
members of the military and National Security Service, both of which have engaged
in gross human rights violations.
“Several companies that
included Kiir family members in their lists of shareholders received public
contracts or letters of credit, which are essentially guarantees from a bank to
a seller that they’ll be paid by the buyer,” the statement reads in part. “The
Sentry, in examining these companies, identified a number of red flags for
trade-based money laundering.”
“The children and
grandchildren of Kiir and his brother-in-law, Gregory Vasili, served as
founding shareholders for a number of companies when they were still minors.”
The Sentry identified 70
companies with foreign shareholders in which members of the Kiir family also
held shares. Foreigners can own businesses in South Sudan, but the 2012
Companies Act mandates that South Sudanese nationals hold at least 31 percent
of the shares.
While these requirements can
support local South Sudanese economic interests, they can also create an
advantage for companies with connections to the political elite.
“The ‘Kiirdom’ project is
designed to enable the South Sudanese people to know what kind of Business
Empire Kiir has built for himself and his family,” The Sentry statement said.
“It is also intended to support public scrutiny and compliance processes meant
to mitigate against corruption risks, thereby ensuring that Kiir-connected
companies and family members face enhanced due diligence commensurate with
their risk profiles.”
South Sudan’s constitution
prohibits high-ranking officials and other constitutional officeholders from
being involved in commercial business or receiving renumeration from any source
other than the national government.
However, this constitutional
provision is often circumvented by having family members of officials listed as
the shareholders of companies.
Despite the provision also
requiring that these officeholders make a declaration of their assets and
liabilities, including those of their spouses and children, such
declarations—when they actually occur—often remain confidential and are not
subject to public scrutiny.
The Sentry’s Atlas includes a visual interface to explore and learn about the companies, banks, and individuals linked to the first family’s business empire. The “Network Insights” sections explain the various means and methods that the Kiir family used in building their business empire, including specific transactions, industries, companies, facilitators, and associates.
Kiir’s family could not
immediately be reached for comment on the new report.
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