South Sudan’s high court on Monday has listened to the fifth prosecution witness James Deng Kuol, an accounting officer in the Office of President.
Deng said during his testimony that he worked according to the directives from his boss Yel Luol, who is now standing trial for alleged embezzlement of funds.
Speaking during the court hearing, Kur Alor Kur, defense lawyer for Yel Luol, the presidency’s chief executive officer, asked the witness on the role he played in the office of president among other financial requests made under him personally.
How many times did he in his capacity as an accounting officer authorize money on behalf of the office of president on urgent matters? the lawyer asked. Deng replied that he made it twice: one was in 2013 during President Kiir’s visit to Kuwait and also in January 2013 during the crisis he was authorized to make financial requests for emergence operations.
He said he normally received orders from his boss Yel Luol to prepare payment requests, financial requests for the Ministry of Finance which he did as normal in his capacity as finance officer.
“It is me who do all the financial requests and approved by the chief executive officer,” Deng said.
In the previous sitting last week, the defense lawyer Kur Alor sought to cast doubt on the credibility of the forensic audit carried out by Senior Auditor Vanancio Logunu and other auditors at the behest of the National Security Service to implicate his client in Yel Luol.
Kur asked the auditor to present to the court how much budget was spent in the Office of the President since 2011 to 2015, and what was the amount approved by the parliament for Kiir’s office. “I don’t know… because the mission was on specific areas to be investigated,” replied the auditor.
The defense lawyers retorted that if he as an auditor did not know the budget in the Office of the President then “how did he as an auditor general in the investigation come up with such a missing amount.” Kur was apparently aware of reports that thepresidency has been significantly overspending its budgets as allocated by parliament.
Following the questioning yesterday, the high court has finished with the fifth prosecution witness and decided to continue with the next hearing on 13 April.