Nicholas Coghlan, Canada’s first resident ambassador to South Sudan, said the findings of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan (CHRSS) were deeply troubling and risked eroding donor confidence.
“Canada is a major funder of the health sector in South Sudan, and the need is enormous,” Coghlan said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “But this [report] is enough to make any Western donor government despair,” added Coghlan, who was awarded the Meritorious Service Cross for his role in the evacuation of Canadian citizens from Juba when civil war broke out in December 2013.
The UN report, published in late September, accuses South Sudan’s top political and military leaders of orchestrating large-scale embezzlement of public resources and using state institutions for personal enrichment.
Investigators said billions of dollars intended for public welfare projects — including health care, infrastructure and education — had been misappropriated through opaque contracts and fraudulent oil deals. In one example, the inquiry found that of US$2.2 billion allocated under the “Oil for Roads” programme, US$1.7 billion remains unaccounted for.
Between 2022 and 2023, the report said, the national parliament’s medical expenses were more than triple the Ministry of Health’s entire budget. The National Transitional Legislative Assembly has 550 members, with an additional 100 in the Council of State. Each member is entitled to $30,000 in medical allowance, disbursed in two instalments per year.
It also noted that more money was spent on the Presidential Medical Unit than on all community, public, secondary, primary and tertiary healthcare combined in a country with a faltering health system, where many elites seek medical treatment abroad.
Coghlan, who also served as Canada’s first resident diplomat in Khartoum, Sudan, from 2000 to 2003, said such revelations could further damage donor confidence.
Canada has long been a key supporter of South Sudan’s health and humanitarian sectors, channeling millions of dollars through UN agencies and international NGOs to fund hospitals, vaccination programmes and maternal health services.
From 2011 to 2022, Canada contributed US$127 million to the Health Pooled Fund, in addition to US$4.5 million to the COVID-19 Response Fund in 2020. It is currently providing US$75 million in health sector support under the Multi-Donor Trust Fund, which runs from 2025 to 2028.