Nilepet hasn’t been audited since establishment – Auditor General

JUBA – The head of South Sudan’s National Audit Chamber Stephen Wondu has said that the state-owned Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet) hasn’t been audited since its establishment because they have been defiant when asked about their financial documents by the independent auditing body.

This comes one month after the auditor general released a report implicating several government institutions including the office of the president in corruption practices in which millions of dollars where given away to entities and individuals from the 2% and 3% meant for oil-producing communities.

The April report, said the office of the president had received – in 2016 – at least $1.3 million for reasons unknown to the independent body. The damning report said oil producing states of Upper Nile, Unity plus Ruweng Administrative Area have been deprived of a sum of 50 million dollars between 2011 and 2020.

Speaking during a webinar meeting on Friday, Wondu said the National Audit Chamber has not received financial statements from the public company since its establishment.

“They haven’t submitted their reports and my job is to requisition them to give me the reports and if they don’t give me the reports, I go to the higher authority which is the parliament,” Wondu stated.

Wondu welcomed the reconstitution of the revitalized parliament and said he will now have a somewhere to run to over the audition of public institution.

“That’s why I’m saying it is good the president has now reconstituted the parliament. I can now go to the parliament and say please help me get the accounts from those institutions. We had not been issuing reports but that doesn’t mean we have not been writing reports,” he said.

“We do have several reports in our drawers, which we hope to be able to issue in the months to come. But the interesting thing is that we have some reports which are hot, fresh. One of them was delivered to me. That is the report on oil sales. It will be signed and made public,” Wondu added.