By Kei Emmanuel Duku
A UN report claims South Sudan’s government is allegedly pre-selling almost its entire oil production months in advance to cover mounting debts.
The report alleges that the practice has already resulted in at least one payment being diverted directly to an unidentified third party rather than the national coffers.
South Sudanese government has on several occasions denied corruption reports leveled against it by international organizations such as the UN and the Sentry which claimed numerous oil scandals and blaming them on some individuals.
In October 2022, the former government spokesperson and the national minister for information Michael Makuei Lueth dismissed the Sentry report alleging that South Sudan elites looted nearly $1 billion dollars for importing food, fuel and medicine.
“That is an unsubstantiated report. It’s a biased report and we know the position of The Sentry: they are anti-government of South Sudan and we know very well that they are the ones working for regime change, which they have failed to make happen. It’s unfortunate that they are charging the government of South Sudan,” Makuei was quoted by VOA in an exclusive interview.
The was presented to the UN Security Council by the UN Panel of Experts on South Sudan pursuant to Security Council resolution 2781 (2025). It accuses South Sudan’s government of engaging in massive advanced payment schemes, with almost all of its 2025 oil cargos pre-sold four to six months in advance. Nevertheless, the government of South Sudan is yet to respond to these accusations.
The report noted that the resumption of Dar blend oil exports since May 2025 has offered a significant benefit to the country’s public finances, generating total oil revenues of around $ 370,195,666 for the first six months of 2025. However, the country’s financial crisis is allegedly worsening due to an endemic lack of transparency and unsustainable borrowing.
The Panel of Experts added that the government has exported an average of one Nile blend and two Dar blend cargos per month since May 2025. Despite commitments to fiscal responsibility outlined in the peace agreement, the Panel stated that the 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years “have been among the least transparent since independence.”
To cope with a cash crunch caused by the ongoing conflict in Sudan and the lengthy suspension of Dar blend exports, the government has increasingly relied on advance payment schemes. The Panel warned that this reliance on pre-payments “carry a heightened risk of diversion,” confirming that they “identified at least one payment made directly to a third party, rather than to the government’s nominated oil account.” This practice of diverting revenue before it even reaches the treasury is deemed a clear hallmark of financial mismanagement.
Further exacerbating the debt crisis, the report presented to the UN Security Council notes that private producers of South Sudan’s oil have received additional allocations of oil to cover costs associated with repairing the pipeline, as well as to recoup loans previously made to the government during the suspension of exports. Additionally, several of South Sudan’s private creditors have initiated legal proceedings in 2025 over outstanding oil-backed loans, signaling a deepening sovereign debt crisis.
In a separate, destructive maneuver to bridge growing budget deficits, the government has increasingly relied on borrowing from the Central Bank. This action “has significantly increased the supply of SSP, depreciating its value against other currencies.”
The financial impact is severe: between May 2024 and May 2025, government borrowing from the Central Bank soared from just over SSP 1 trillion to over SSP 2.1 trillion.
Consequently, the official exchange rate depreciated dramatically from SSP 1,561 to the dollar to over SSP 4,500 over the same period. Given South Sudan’s high dependence on imports for basic goods, the plummeting currency has had a devastating and direct impact on the food security of the population. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in September 2025 that the cost of staple foods like maize and sorghum had almost quadrupled in Juba over the past year.
The fiscal crisis detailed in the UN report is part of a decades-long pattern of financial mismanagement and institutionalized corruption rooted in how the manages its primary national resource-oil.