An Open Letter to President Kiir: There is Wild Corruption in the National Pre-Transitional Committee
By Kanybil Noon, Juba, South Sudan
Thursday, June 20, 2019 (PW) — According to the Revitalised Peace agreement on the resolution of Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, the National Pre-transitional Committee (NPTC) shall be formed as follow by the President of the Republic of South Sudan within two weeks of signing the Revitalised ARCSS. The NPTC shall comprise of ten members (10) representing the Parties as follows;
Five (5) for incumbent TGoNU, two (2) for SPLM/A-IO, one (1) for SSOA, one (1) for FDs and One (1) for OPP (Other Opposition Parties and it says, the NPTC shall be chaired by the incumbent TGoNU representative with two deputy chairs to be nominated by SPLM/A-IO and SSOA respectively.
Thus, having trusted Honourable Tut Gatluak, the presidential advisor on Security, President Kiir decided to appoint him as the head of NPTC despite the fact that he hardly understands or writes a word in English. President Kiir too forgot to acknowledge the existed person with significant bad records in the Crisis Management Committee who squandered million of dollars in a similar (a body established in 2013 to loot resources) way and that is none other than Martin Elia Lomoro, the current Minister of Cabinet Affairs whom he entrusted as Secretary General of the NPTC.
Dr. Martine brought into the NPTC the crisis Management Ideology of receive and share without accountability which has cost the Country a lot financially and little has been achieved in the Pre-transitional arrangement period that consequently led to the six months extension of the Transitional Government of National Unity and possibly, there will be no success if your leadership don’t take prompt action to remove these two dishonest men.
The Revitalised ARCSS entrusted NPTC with the functional oversight and coordination of the implementation of the activities of the pre-transitional period. However, the oversight and coordination for which NPTC was established have not been achieved to larger extent due to financial constrains across the different pre-transitional committees.
On financial matter, I have heard the government officials in many occasions asking for foreign financial support to the Revitalised Peace Agreement despite having not addressed the endemic corruption in the NPTC which scares and holdback individuals and friends of South Sudan from stepping in to fund the financial deficit in the Peace Agreement.
Nevertheless, the adamancy of friends of South Sudan and partners to fund the peace agreement is uncertainty about how their resources will be used and accounted for, and they believe their funds will not serve the purpose rather than enriching wrong people in the NPTC.
According to the Revitalized ARCSS, the NPTC shall draw the road map for implementing the political tasks of the pre-transitional period and address the issues of VIP security as per security arrangement and preparation for the new ministers among others.
With that trust, the NPTC under Hon. Tut Gatluak and Dr. Martine Elia Lomoro failed to mobilise and avail funds for training of necessary forces that were pre-requisites for formation of the Transitional Government of National Unity not because there were no resources but lack of transparency and accountability in the NPTC financial management.
The Revitalised ARCSS has mandated NPTC to establish a fund, to be drawn from government funds and contributions of donors for the implementation of the activities of the pre-transitional period. According to the Revitalised ARCSS, the Fund shall be deposit by the Ministry of Finance and Planning of the Incumbent TGoNU in special account in a bank agreed by the NPTC. The NPTC according to the Revitalised ARCSS shall manage the fund transparently and report on it monthly to the President of the Republic of South Sudan and the Parties.
Hence, NPTC did establish a fund drawn from the government and other donors such as Japan, South Africa and IGAD, and NPTC immediately received 8 million US dollars from the Government and donors which was never accounted for with no progress made in the pre-transitional arrangement period due to lack of resources.
The NPTC leadership oppositions included misappropriated 8 million US dollars with smaller percentage given to pre-transitional Committees for their operations. Despite emphasis made in the Revitalised ARCSS that NPTC funds shall be managed in a transparent and accountable manner, this did not happen because of NPTC leadership inability to act transparently.
Nevertheless, the incumbent TGoNU under your leadership (President Kiir Mayardit) did approved $10,000,000 USD plus 100,000,000 SSP for implementation of the transitional period yet the NPTC leadership is telling committees that its account is empty in less than two months.
To justify my position, this is how NPTC spent 10,000,000 USD, two million US dollars (2,000,000) was paid to four Security Mechanisms such as JDB, JTSC, JMCC, SDSR-B and the less paid committee was SDSR-B with 100,000 USD. NPTC also approved 25,000 USD for each committees of the peace agreement such as JDB, JTSC, JMCC, SDSR-B, and NCAC for administrative costs which amount to 225,000 USD and the total spending was two million two hundred and twenty five thousand USD ($2,225,000).
When you subtract that, seven million eight hundred and seventy five thousand USD dollars will remain unspent. However, I could just give the NPTC a million dollars for its administrative and other expenses but still six million eight hundred and seventy five thousand dollars remain unspent excludes one hundred million South Sudanese Pounds (100,000 SSP).
Therefore, there is enough evidence to confirm that Dr. Martin Elia and Tut Gatluak are saboteurs to the peace process and are out there to enrich themselves at the expense of millions of South Sudanese who are looking at your leadership as a source of their suffering.
Consequently, they are answerable to you since you are an appointing authority and if they fail to execute their duties in a transparent and accountable manner, all blames go to you as long as they are not being held to account for misappropriation of pre-transitional arrangement funds.
On the other hand, some individuals entrusted to run the NPTC financial system are below needed qualifications and their qualifications at most are secondary schools education level with little technical expertise to effectively manage finances.
Tut Gatluak and Martin Elia have abused logistics and financial management system to the core for their material interests and this will never encourage donors to risks putting their resources into a system they are sure of chronic or endemic corruption.
For the success of the Pre-transitional period, president Kiir should consider removing Tut Gatluak and Martin Elia Lomoro as heads of NPTC due to their chronic corruption that is failing the agreement. Hence, I suggest the following personalities as honest and Accountable from whom president should appoint to replace these rotten individuals from NPTC.
1. Prof. Francis Mading Deng.
2. Prof. Moses Macar Kacuol.
3. Prof. George Bureng.
4. Hon. Aleu Ayieny Aleu.
Besides, I equally suggest the following between which president should appoint a secretary General for the NPTC.
1. Ambassador Stephen Wundu, the current head of audit chamber.
2. Dr. John Gai Yoah.
Kindly go into these names and appointment two of them and you will see the different in NPTC,
Kanybil Noon is a board Member for Strategic Defence and Security Review Board (SDSR-B) of the Revitalised ARCSS; Contact him through the following for clarifications: Kan1noon@gmail.com or 0914041505
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