CORRUPTION: Newly-appointed Nilepet director turning state-owned company into ‘clan enterprise’

JUBA – The newly appointed Managing Director of South Sudan’s state-owned Nilepet Company, Bol Ring Muorwel, has in recent weeks employed dozens of family members, according to an investigation by Sudans Post, with some saying he is turning the state-owned oil company into a family enterprise.

In a finding, Sudans Post was told that Mourwel has been offering $40,000 a month to one of his uncles [Ring Charles Mayen] who was working at a Petrol station as a manager in Juba, before moving in with his family to at least two hotel rooms in the capital now paid for by the Nile Petroleum company, and has employed 20 other close family members at the  Greater Pioneer Operating Company (GPOC).

“Bol [Mourwel] has been giving his uncle called Ring Charles Mayen a sum of $40,000 a month because his uncle has left his old job at a petrol station and has moved to live with his family who are now occupying two separate hotels paid for by the NilePet,” one employee at NilePet having a direct knowledge with the matter told Sudans Post in an interview.

“That uncle has also been promoted as a cashier at the Nilepet. This is unfair to promote a junior stuff who was just a petrol station manager to that high office. It overlooked other hardworking employees who have been working there for years,” the staffer who strongly refused to be named said.

The staffer further decried what he calls a clan enterprise saying: “He [Ring Charles Mayen] has turned the National Company into a clan enterprise as he brings illiterate relatives from the village and have them employed at NilePet by his uncle [Bol Ring Mourwel].”

Bol was appointed by President Salva Kiir Mayardit in September to replace Dr. Chol Deng who, for his part, was also accused of corruption and nepotism.