Corruption at NilePet: How the Managing Director is Using Construction of NilePet Headquarters as a Tool of Looting the Company to Death
By Deng Joseph Mareng, Juba, South Sudan
Friday, September 16, 2022 (PW) — The National Oil and Gas Company’s (Nilepet) project to construct or establish a permanent headquarters is a good project, and we should thank all the Nilepet managing directors who have contributed in various ways, from those who planned the project plan to those who carried it out on the ground as it is currently being done. It is a sequential-collective noble gesture that its recognition should not be misconstrued as a one-man accomplishment.
However, despite the praise for this project, I disagree with a number of its tenets. For instance, I believe that the project’s implementation was corrupted by corruption inside the company. The current managing director at the helm has used it as a means of gaining attention and retaining control over the Nilepet despite his deliberate failure. In order to make it clear what is really happening behind the scenes, I will make every effort to provide some points for a serious examination of the construction of the National Oil and Gas Company (Nilepet) permanent headquarters.
First of all, in engineering as a discipline, according to the jurists of the architects, there is a need for accuracy in the design at every stage of the architectural process because if the structural design fails to adhere to standards, codes, and a variety of calculation errors, engineering-wise, this could lead to a catastrophe that renders the structure unusable or shortens its lifespan, making it dangerous to human life since it would suddenly collapse unnoticed. If we try to apply the concept above to the undergoing construction of the National Oil and Gas Company, we will find that it is accompanied by errors in implementation, including inaccurate structural design, and evidence of this is the modifications and changes that were made in the building during construction, including the addition of four layers over seven layers.
Given the significant disparities in the loads in every way between the activities of each type of building, this shift is one of the mistakes made on purpose. It is not reasonable to modify a structure that was designated and redesigned for certain loads into a building that contains multiples of what was intended for it by design because any change or modification in the type of activities may cause problems for the building that grows upwards as the load increases. The addition of another model that was not part of the primary design from the start is another aspect of the modification that was employed in the firm’s creation. All of these operations run the risk of damaging the structure by pruning it to fall in the short run.
Dear Reader, the evidence for my argument is that, in the recent past, you may have seen a lot of horrifying images related to the damage inside the construction site of Nilepet; these images included cracks, piling, and leaking. These images were widely shared on social media platforms. They did not appear anywhere; in fact, the building is already on the verge of collapsing before it is finished. In my opinion, all of this damage is the result of implementation mistakes, as I mentioned at the beginning of the article.
According to my personal analysis, the National Oil and Gas Company building’s cracks are a result of poor shear and bending resistance, which frequently result from excessive loads, implementation problems, or poor design. In addition, the building’s ceiling suffers from the lack of a tilted cast, which allows water to accumulate on top of the tiles. On the other hand, it’s possible that the building lacks a waterproofing system, there are pour joints, or damage to the building caused water to leak in as a result of water leaking through the joints between the ceilings and walls.
Either the modifications of the columns that were made inside are the inevitable result of the process of denting the concrete columns resulting from the column not bearing the dominant loads on it due to the increase in the building layers according to the modifications, which leads to a failure in the pressure resistance of the concrete and a failure in the tensile resistance of the rebar. This is considered one of the errors resulting from modifications in master design or project implementation.
Secondly, what is funny and very shameful is that the issue is not related to the building’s non-compliance with modern engineering specifications only, but rather it has been transformed into a source of corruption and political scheme for the current managing director’s continuation in power despite the failures that he practices at the company level, according to what the current manager explained, linking his continuity in the company’s management to the end of the building. Therefore, he plans very shameful tactics to build the building slowly to assign a life-long of his leadership to the company’s management—the end of the building.
The Godfather is unaware that the project cannot be completed by a single individual. If he is engaging in corruption as he is now doing, he can be relieved and a new person can be brought in to carry out state-related projects since it is a state thing. His dark ploy of using this building as a plate of gold to eat the money of the people of South Sudan is unacceptable. This means that vast sums of money are collected under the building’s construction by the National Oil and Gas Company, so don’t expect the building to finish erection despite its lax engineering specifications because it has become a source of profit for the current administration of Nilepet.
Third, before independence, citizens and the government were concerned about the construction of refineries. If we look back in time to trace these concerns, we find that in 2009, the Council of Ministers of the Government of Southern Sudan agreed to report on the project for the construction of the refinery in the area called Akon of Warrap State, which was presented by Maulana the late John Luk, then Minister of Petroleum, and he said that an Italian company would be building the refinery.
At the time, the minister stated that the National Oil and Gas Business would be in charge of carrying out the project, while the winning company would be in charge of implementation. In a related concern, President Salva Kiir Mayardit set the cornerstone for the nation’s first refinery, Thiangryal, in Melut County, Upper Nile State in 2012 as part of the government’s plans to carry out a refinery project for independence rather than exporting South Sudan’s oil for refinement.
So, dear reader, despite the recognition that creating an atmosphere for the company’s employees is very important, this building is not considered one of the most important priorities that the company’s management should strive for because it does not contribute to upgrading the standard of living of citizens under the current conditions in which they live or it can’t improve their economic situation. The implementation of the refineries is one of the most important priorities that the company’s managing director failed to put on the ground so that the citizens simply benefit and get out of the economic bottleneck.
The construction of any of the refineries under proposal since before independence has been delayed despite it being anticipated to be beneficial to the state treasury and reduce the suffering of citizens on the burden of fuel price skyrocketing, which has a strong relationship with daily life of the citizen. The construction of local refineries can also provide asphalt and other materials for road construction and maintenance, which is important at this stage when the country is trying to pave a durable road network. Among other things, the current managing director has failed to implement the attempt to increase production through its subsidiary companies.
One of the most important areas of focus in this aspect is solutions to a budget deficit experienced by the state. No matter how the government is insolvent, the salaries of state employees should have to be paid, despite the oil drilling brought in over a long time. And because of the failure of the current administration to increase production, there is difficulty in paying the salaries of the country’s employees, knowing that oil is the main source of income on which the country depends completely. Now that the managing director has no plans to expand the business of this government’s own corporation, it is high time that he should be relieved and another competent SPLM cadre with a brain must be appointed to rescue the government from this fragile situation.
The author, Deng Joseph Mareng, is a cadre of SPLM and could be reached via dengwallat@gmail.com
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