Overview

• The 101-page UN report says the government’s off-budget Oil for Roads program disbursed about $2.2 billion from 2021 to 2024 to companies tied to Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel, with roughly $1.7 billion unaccounted and 95% of roads unfinished.
• The commission concludes that diversion of oil and non-oil revenues has crippled public services, leaving nearly two-thirds of the country facing crisis-level hunger and, in some years, the president’s medical unit outspending the entire national health system.
• South Sudan’s government rejects the findings as absurd and methodologically flawed, attributing the country’s problems to conflict, climate shocks and falling oil revenue and disputing the figures cited.
• Investigators also flag politically connected revenue schemes outside the budget and warn that sustained graft undermines human rights obligations and fuels violent competition for power and resources.
• The report, released after a two-year probe with 173 targeted meetings, lands as First Vice President Riek Machar faces charges including crimes against humanity, intensifying concerns over political instability and the risk of renewed war.