The Office of the President has cancelled a directive, allocating 18 crude oil cargoes to a company that reportedly supplied the army with goods.

The cancellation comes after the approximately 600 million-dollar deal was leaked last week.

In a letter dated October 21, 2019, the Ministry of Finance directed the Ministry of Petroleum to allocate 18 crude oil cargoes to M/S MINS General Trading LLC.

It cited a letter that had been written under the directives of President Salva Kiir as the basis for the use of crude oil as a payment to the company.

The Finance Minister said he approved the letter from the Office of the President, issuing payment to the trading company for supplying food items to the SSPDF, wounded heroes, and cantonment and assembly areas.

“M/S MINS General Trading was contracted by the ministry of defense and vererans’ affairs to supply food items to entire SSPDF, wounded heroes, cantonment and assembly areas in accordance with the R-ARCSS,” partly reads the letter.

It is not clear when and where the company supplied the items. But the letter instructed the Petroleum Ministry to begin the allocation of the oil cargo in January 2020.

This caused public outcry, with some members of the public questioning the legality of the deal since the legislature wasn’t involved.

On Monday, the Minister in the Office of the President issued a counter letter, revoking the allocation of the 18 crude oil cargo to MINS General Trading Company.

In a letter seen by Eye Radio this afternoon, Mayiik Ayii Deng said the cancellation is with immediate effect.

“I write to communicate the cancellation of the aforementioned allocation with effect from 28^th October 2019,” writes Ayii.

He directed the Ministry of Finance to “devise an internal mechanism on how to pay creditors demanding pay from the government for the goods and services rendered.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two businessmen in South Sudan for what it says is their involvement in corruption.

One of the men is Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal, whose company General Trading LLC almost looks the one that was offered crude oil.

In early 2019, the South Sudanese government made millions of dollars in payments to a company owned by Al-Cardinal; while the official reason was for the payment for food, the money instead went to senior South Sudanese government officials.

This is the third time this year a deal involving the Office of the President has been revoked.

On 14 June, the minister in the office of the President, Mayiik Ayii Deng, wrote to the minister of finance and economic planning, Salvatore Garang – asking him to grant tax-exempt for ARC Resource Corporation Ltd.

However, the then National Revenue Authority chief Dr. Olympio Attipoe revoked the exempt status of the multi-million dollar road construction company.

In June, the National Revenue Authority also has distanced itself from what appeared to be a fraudulent business scheme engineered by the Chairman of the Traders’ Union and backed by senior government officials, including those in the Office of the President.

This was also disapproved of by the City Council that questioned Ayii Duang’s move.

Meanwhile,  implementation of the activities of the pre-transitional period has been slow, the Kiir administration owes regional and international bodies membership fees, civil servants have gone for months without pay. The ministry of finance blames this on lack of money.

But according to the ministry of petroleum, the world’s youngest country produces more than 175,000 barrels per day.

At the current oil prices, the government gets over 5.5 million US dollars per day or more than $165 million per month.