Business Corruption

According to Global Integrity 2006, inspections of companies are carried out by authorities in an arbitrary and uneven fashion and may involve bribery. Companies should also be informed of the fact that many public servants who have access to licences, seals, stamps etc. are reportedly willing to sell these at 'negotiated' prices.

Billions of USD was embezzled during the South Sudanese government’s food reserve programme in 2008. According to a 2011 news article by Sudan Tribune, many contractors allegedly forged fake claims to delivering over 10 million bags of maize and dura to all ten Southern States, and subsequently requested payment from the government. Several of the contractors have been compensated or partly compensated at huge expense to the government. This grain fraud is described as ‘the most costly corrupt practice the region had ever witnessed’.

Political Corruption

Both Northern Sudan and Southern Sudan are notorious for siphoning money off the system through phantom infrastructure projects. As illustrated in a 2007 article by the Sudan Tribune, the lack of capacity on behalf the Government of Southern Sudan in combination with a lack of checks and balances makes this corruption and fraud possible. The same source also reports that the World Bank has refused to fund road construction projects because the level of corruption is so severe. In August 2006, Southern Sudanese Minister of Rural Development and Infrastructure James Henry Tadiwewas was suspended on the grounds that he embezzled USD 67,000 allocated for drilling boreholes, as reported by Global Integrity 2006.

In March 2010, the Sudanese Cabinet ordered the investigation of the disappearance of SDG 10 billion from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. The State Minister and the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs were reported to be under investigation. The funds were meant to use for the emergency programme and for humanitarian action, as reported by Sudan Tribune in 2010.

Frequency

The World Bank & IFC: Doing Business 2011:
- To obtain a construction permit, a company must go through 19 administrative steps, which take an average of 271 days at a cost of approximately 192% of income per capita.