Intrepid South Sudan (ISS) has backed a United Nations report accusing the country’s governing elite of looting tens of millions of dollars from public coffers.

The UN’s Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said last week that more than $73 million and other wealth had been diverted from public coffers and resources.

According to the UN, investigations were carried out by the commission over the past two years. The commission noted that this figure is only a fraction of the overall amount looted.

‘The oil money is flowing … but it is not reflected [in] the lives of the people in the country, so the report is not far from the truth’, AFP quoted the civil society organisation’s Executive Director, Bol Deng Bol, as saying.

‘I would urge the people of South Sudan to see how their finances are being spent’.

The commission accused South Sudan’s elites of deliberately adopting a ‘highly informal’ system of oil revenue collection, without independent oversight and transparency, thus enabling the misappropriation of public funds.

However, the country’s government dismissed the UN report, saying it is the victim of an ‘international campaign’.

‘These are the organisations that are sponsored not to see political stability in South Sudan and they will move from one thing to the other, from human rights to corruption, from corruption to something else’, AFP also quoted the country’s Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Martin Lomuro, as saying.

‘This country is sovereign … if the government has mismanaged anything, it is only the people of South Sudan who can hold this government accountable, not external forces’.

Economic stagnation as a result of a protracted crisis has left 82 percent of South Sudan’s population in poverty, with more than six million in crisis-level food insecurity and over three million displaced.

Sources: OHCHR, AFP

Photo source: UNMISS