South Sudan minister faces legal action over alleged school land sales

JUBA – Central Equatoria State’s Minister of Education, Cirisio Zakaria Lado, is under investigation for allegedly selling public school land to private investors.

The accusations came to light during a visit to Supiri Secondary School in Juba by the national Minister of General Education and Instruction, Awut Deng, and Central Equatoria Governor Augustino Jadallah.

According to a statement on the governor’s official page, the visit aimed to assess reports of school land being sold off.

Awut subsequently announced legal action against Mr. Lado.

“Legal processes will be taken against him because this is becoming too much,” Awut said in a press statement.

Awut explained that ongoing construction at Supiri School prompted her to send an inspection team.

“It was unfortunate, that again the Supiri that we knew all these months and years again has been sold off by the CES ministry of general education and the papers are with me,” she said.

Awut questioned the motives of the companies involved, stating, “I don’t even know why companies will even accept to destroy our education system in our country? There is a plenty of land in CES that can be given by the government.”

She accused Mr. Lado of selling off and privatizing a significant amount of public-school land.

“He has turned them to private schools, they dismiss our children after four hours and then take over from there and charge people to pay and without knowledge of the governor,” she said.

“This has been going on, there is a resolution and I think we are taking legal action against the minister of General Education,” she added, listing several schools allegedly sold by Mr. Lado.

Governor Jadallah echoed Deng’s concerns and issued a stern warning to any minister involved in similar practices.

“The ministry of education doesn’t have the right to make investment within a school, we are going to take legal action against the person who made orders that this place should be sold off,” he said.

The headmaster of Supiri confirmed to Awut and Governor Jadallah that the directive to sell part of the school came from the state Ministry of Education.

These accusations follow a memo approved by the Council of Ministers last month to remove individuals illegally occupying public school land.

The memo requested by Awut also bans the sale and privatization of school land.

Deputy Minister of Information Jacob Mijok Korok said the memo would hold land grabbers accountable.

Lado has not yet commented on the allegations.