Ateny Wek Ateny, press secretary in the Office of the President at the TNLA on May 14, 2019 | Credit | Joakino Francis/Eye Radio

The Office of the President has issued its counter-report against The Sentry expose on corruption tied to the first family in South Sudan.

In September, the U.S-based advocacy group published a report called The Taking of the South Sudan, which accused regional and international companies of profiting from the South Sudan conflict.

It revealed that several multinational corporations have forged formal partnerships with, or provided material support to, people and entities responsible for human rights abuses.

It accused seven immediate family members of President Salva Kiir of forging partnership with Chinese-Malaysian oil giants, British tycoons and networks of traders from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Uganda.

The Sentry urged the US update its sanctions designation criteria to include family members as one of the recommendations.

It also called for the blocking of corrupt officials from accessing luxury goods and property abroad, going after entire networks, including international facilitators, and sounding the alarm on corrupt real estate acquisitions.

However, in a 40-page response to The Sentry report on Thursday, the Office of the President questioned the methodology used to acquire the alleged evidence in the report.

Kiir’s office said the advocacy group relied mostly on media and UN reports.

“The evidence that The Sentry offers to support the above claims are extraordinarily weak,” said Ateny Wek, press secretary.

“There is evidence that the accused businesses do exist in the South Sudan business registry. Nevertheless, many of these businesses have since collapsed hence are not involved in the activities the sentry alleged as damaging to the country. For example Gemtel Limited. In most cases president Kiir’s family members are the majority shareholders.”

According to The Sentry Report, only First Lady Ayen was running Gemtel. However, their children are managing several businesses, as shown below: