JUBA – A new investigation has revealed that the family of South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir controls a sprawling business empire, spanning key sectors of the country’s economy. The report, titled “Kiirdom: The Sprawling Corporate Kingdom of South Sudan’s First Family,” was released by The Sentry on Tuesday.
The investigation, which delves into data from the South Sudan Ministry of Justice and original research by The Sentry, highlights how the Kiir family has amassed wealth and power while the nation grapples with conflict and instability.
John Prendergast, co-founder of The Sentry, criticized the regime for its focus on self-enrichment.
“Since independence, rather than work toward a secure and prosperous future, the Kiir regime has orchestrated destabilization, repression, violent conflict, and mass starvation while consolidating a lucrative corporate empire. The first family has deployed an array of circumvention techniques to veil from the public their businesses and assets,” Prendergast said.
The report, accessible on The Sentry’s interactive Atlas platform, provides detailed profiles of companies, banks, and individuals connected to the first family’s network. It also exposes the methods used by the Kiir family to build their empire, including trade-based money laundering and the use of proxies.
Michelle Kendler-Kretsch, Investigations Manager at The Sentry, emphasized the importance of transparency in holding powerful elites accountable.
“The Sentry’s new open-data platform, Atlas, illuminates the business empires, facilitators, and financing mechanisms of global networks of kleptocrats, conflict financiers, and war profiteers. Atlas functions as a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of a kleptocracy, aiming to facilitate public scrutiny, transparency, and accountability for these elites and their enablers,” he said.
“By providing an interactive visualization tool, easy-to-use search, expert analysis, and detailed profiles of individuals and entities, Atlas empowers journalists, policymakers, financial institutions, and the public to hold those responsible for large-scale violence and grand corruption accountable. Atlas projects are designed to be dynamic, enabling us to nimbly combat corruption through regular updates,” he added.
The investigation found that 126 companies are linked to the Kiir family, involving high-profile individuals with ties to the military and security services. Several companies with Kiir family connections have received public contracts and bank guarantees, raising concerns about trade-based money laundering.
According to the investigation, the Kiir family has also used proxies to circumvent constitutional restrictions on public officials engaging in business. It said that a lack of transparency in asset declarations by officials hinders public scrutiny.
The report also revealed that some of Kiir’s children and grandchildren were listed as shareholders in companies while still minors. Foreign shareholders are also involved in companies with Kiir family connections, potentially exploiting loopholes in the 2012 Companies Act.
The project owners say that they aim to empower the South Sudanese people and support public scrutiny and accountability. It provides a detailed resource for journalists, researchers, and law enforcement to understand the extent of the Kiir family’s business empire, the investigation added.
“The ‘Kiirdom’ project is designed to enable the South Sudanese people to know what kind of business empire Kiir has built for himself and his family,” the writers said.
“It is also intended to support public scrutiny and compliance processes meant to mitigate against corruption risks, thereby ensuring that Kiir-connected companies and family members face enhanced due diligence commensurate with their risk profiles,” they added.
The Sentry’s investigation in South Sudan follows its previous work on the Aliyev Empire, exposing the business dealings of Azerbaijan’s ruling family.
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