This report is published by Radio Tamazuj as part of an investigative series profiling former vice-president Dr. Benjamin Bol Mel. It examines his political career, influence, and role in South Sudan’s recent history. This is the final part of the series.
Enter sanctions
In December 2017, while the war profiteers, really a section of the elite in the government and military and a select group of businessmen, were enjoying their loot, the first Trump Administration announced sanctions against Bol and 52 people and entities around the world for alleged human rights abuses and corruption.
Top South Sudanese officials under the tutelage of President Kiir had been illicitly benefiting from the war that erupted in December 2013 and by December 2017 had left hundreds of thousands dead, a quarter of the population displaced, and left the oil-dependent economy dilapidated.
The raft of sanctions was the first under the Global Magnitsky Act, which gives the U.S. President standing authority to impose sanctions on non-U.S. citizens guilty of corruption or gross human rights violations perpetrated against whistleblowers. The law also enhances congressional involvement in the designation of individuals to be investigated for human rights violations, and helps to ensure that U.S. financial institutions are not complicit in supporting those profiting from atrocities.
The law brought a unique focus to corruption and the illicit gain acquired through acts of corruption and especially with regard to those in government positions, those who are complicit in corrupt acts, and those who facilitate or transfer the proceeds of corruption to foreign jurisdictions.
Benjamin Bol Mel was listed as being the President of ABMC Thai-South Sudan Construction Company Limited (ABMC), and as having served as the Chairman of the South Sudan Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture. It was also said that he served as Kiir’s principal financial advisor, was the president’s private secretary, and was perceived within the government as being close to Kiir and the local business community.
Numerous ranking government officials were associated with ABMC in spite of a constitutional proscription on top government officials transacting commercial business or earning income from outside the government.
South Sudan, through the then presidential spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, was quick to deny that Bol was Kiir’s advisor and said the decision to blacklist him was based on misleading information.
At the time, Wek said the assertion that Bol Mel had business ties with the president “is not true”, and also denied that there were any official relations between the two men.
“He is not an adviser to the president, and he should be treated as an individual,” he stated, adding that most of the information the U.S. used to blacklist South Sudan officials was “misleading”.
The U.S. Embassy in South Sudan countered that Bol was being punished for his “role, and that of his business network, in facilitating corruption.” It said Bol exploited his connections with Kiir “to regularly engage in large-scale government contracts worth millions of US dollars for construction work that was not completed”.
Interestingly, as of September 2017, several serving or former South Sudanese officials were already under U.S. sanctions for alleged roles in the conflict, including Malek Reuben Riak Rengu, the army’s deputy chief of the defence staff for logistics; former army chief Paul Malong, for whom the Central Bank was opened at night to collect $5 million to hunt down and kill Dr. Riek Machar who was fleeing on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo in July 2015; and then Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth. At the time, numerous rights groups and activists, both local and international, accused mostly government troops of killings, mass rapes, and looting and destroying property.
Benjamin Bol Mel, unfazed by the sanctions and sure of Kiir’s protection, went about business as usual and got new passports in different names to help his travels to Kenya, Uganda, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he had properties and stashed money.
To circumvent the U.S. sanctions and stay off the radar, Bol registered several commercial vehicles to continue getting government funds with the help and protection of the President. Prominent among these companies were Africa Resources Corporation (ARC), also known as ARC Resource Corporation Ltd and Winners Construction Company Limited.
On 9 December 2021, International Anti-Corruption Day, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) of the US Department of the Treasury, designated ARC Resources Corporation Limited (ARC Resources) and Winners Construction Company Limited (Winners) for being owned or controlled by Benjamin Bol Mel (Bol Mel), an individual included in the Annex of E.O. 13818 in December 2017.
“Bol Mel previously oversaw ABMC Thai-South Sudan Construction Company Limited (ABMC), which was awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars by the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) and allegedly received preferential treatment from high-level GoSS officials in a non-competitive process for selecting ABMC to do roadwork throughout South Sudan,” the U.S. Treasury Department statement said at the time. “ARC Resources is linked to ABMC and has been used by senior members of GoSS for laundering money. Both ARC Resources and Winners have been used to evade sanctions and travel restrictions on Bol Mel, and have been awarded noncompetitive and substantial oil-backed contracts from the GoSS for road construction.”
The Treasury explained that ARC Resources and Winners were designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, Bol Mel, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 13818.
The sanctions on Bol’s new commercial vehicles took a bizarre and fascinating twist in August 2020 when two National Security Service (NSS) officers, Lt. Col. Kuot Garang Kuot, who was in charge of Special Operations in the Office of the then Director General of Internal Security Bureau (ISB), Gen. Akol Koor, and Captain Jiel Michael Yai, who had worked as an ISB Economic Intelligence Division officer attached to the finance ministry, were apprehended and detained at the infamous Blue House for leaking confidential documents related to Bol’s African Resource Corporation (ARC) and Equip Logistics Co.
By this time, Kiir had pole-vaulted Bol to the rank of Major General in the NSS-ISB, where he was in charge of “Special Desk and Projects.”
The two officers had, over the previous months, extorted over $5 million and bulletproof Toyota Land Cruisers from Bol, whose dealings they threatened to expose if he did not part with more money. Lt. Col. Kuot Garang has previously been named as being in charge of a squad that kills and disappears people deemed to be real or imaginary enemies of the state.
“Lt. Col. Kuot Garang and Captain Jiel Michael Yai have been trying to extort money from Benjamin Bol for the last few months. So far, Bol has given them over 5 million US dollars in cash as well as bullet-proof cars,” a senior NSS officer privy to the matter but who preferred anonymity told a local publication at the time. “They kept coming back asking for more money from Bol, but when he refused, they threatened to expose him.”
Prior to the arrest of the duo, several confidential financial documents were published on social media, faulting “Gen. Bol of amassing wealth through tax evasion and unlawful tax exemptions from the finance ministry and South Sudan Revenue Authority (SSRA) worth over 30 billion US dollars for unspecified goods being imported into South Sudan between 2019 and 2020”.
The documents revealed that Bol registered African Resource Corporation under Awut Bol Mel, Bol’s daughter, with 70 per cent shares, and Deng Deng Akuei, Bol’s trusted bodyguard, with 30 per cent shares. On the other hand, Equip Logistics Co. Ltd was registered to two close cousins of Bol; Kuol Akol Wieu with 90 per cent shares and Adhieu Kuol Akol with 10 per cent respectively. This was for Bol Mel to skirt sanctions.
On 8 September 2020, ARC issued a press release describing the leakage of the company’s documents as “information meant to derail and undermine the progress we are making in our various road construction projects, especially in the light of the commendable job done so far.” However, ARC did not repudiate being given irregular tax exemptions amounting to billions of dollars, as indicated in the leaked documents.
Indeed, President Kiir’s silent hand in approving the huge tax exemptions was revealed in a leaked letter dated 4 January 2019, written by then acting executive director in the office of the president, Rizig Dominic Samuel, directing the finance minister to approve the tax exemptions for Equip Logistics as directed by the president.
In mid-September 2020, the illustrious online publication, Sudans Post, reported that two days after the ARC press statement, Bol met Kiir and narrated the tribulations he had been exposed to by the two officers. The publication said that according to high-placed sources from the State House (J1), President Salva Kiir ordered Security Minister Gen. Obuto Mamur to “immediately arrest Lt. Col. Kuot Garang and Capt. Jiel Michael Yai and form a committee to investigate them for threatening to kill Dr Bol Mel.”
ARC was then awarded the multi-billion-dollar contract to pave and tarmac the Juba-Bor-Renk Highway. The company was given almost the entire cargoes of the Nile Blend for the project, with an initial payment of $150 million from a $250 million loan the country had taken from Afri-Exim Bank.
“Oil for Roads” fraud
The biggest heist in South Sudan’s nascent history was to come after Bol formed two companies aptly named African Resources Corporation (ARC) and Winners Construction Company in late 2018 and early 2019. These firms were created to circumvent personal sanctions on Bol and his ABMC. He went ahead to use the two as new commercial vehicles in yet another larger raid of public funds dubbed “oil for roads.”
This was a novel stratagem invented by Bol and endorsed by President Kiir to swipe oil revenues under the cover of road construction. In March 2019, a Chinese company, Shandong Hi-Speed Group Co., Ltd (SDHS), signed an “Oil for Development” deal with the Government of South Sudan to build several major highways, including the strategic Juba-Terekeka-Rumbek Road. The project was to be funded by allocating 30,000 barrels of crude oil per day to cover the costs.
However, the project soon encountered ‘dangerous’ headwinds when the then minister of presidential affairs, Mayiik Ayii Deng, under Kiir’s nose, created a company aptly named Shandong Nile Investment Ltd to impersonate the rightful Chinese company and take over the road works on the Juba-Terekeka-Rumbek Road. The ‘fake’ company started work, and when they laid the first layer of asphalt, the rains washed it away, blowing the lid off the scam wide open. Many wonder why the road project was placed in the docket of the office of the president as opposed to the rightful one in the Ministry of Roads and Bridges.
Kiir fired Mayiik in June 2020. During the swearing-in of Nhial Deng Nhial, who replaced Mayiik, Kiir lamented but admitted that the latter created a fake company to do the road works and that it was the reason he fired him.
Interestingly, Kiir did not prosecute Mayiik for this glaring act of corruption but instead appointed him foreign minister in September 2021. This raised red flags about the president’s own role in the subterfuge.
After the dust of the diplomatic embarrassment, the rightful Shandong Hi-Speed Group Co., Ltd (SDHS) was soon back on the job. However, the Chinese government and SDHS severally suspended works, at times citing persistent delays in payments from the South Sudanese government.
In July 2020, the Government of South Sudan temporarily halted construction to allow for a review of the road’s design and quality standards, which officials said initially lacked adequate drainage and other essential infrastructure.
Despite the challenges, officials in 2022 hailed the progress and positive impact of the completed sections on local livelihoods, describing the project as South Sudan’s first modern highway and a key part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
On 12 December 2022, President Kiir commissioned the newly completed 63-kilometre Juba-Terekeka section of the 392-kilometre Juba-Rumbek Road. Grippingly, Shandong Hi-Speed Group Co., Ltd (SDHS) operations ceased on the road they were to continue building up to the Lakes State capital, Rumbek, immediately after Kiir launched the Juba-Terekeka stretch. Bol’s ARC, using his partnership with Kiir, then took over works, mostly in sections of the road in Lakes State, to distressing effects for travellers and many villages along the highway.
Bol and his ARC had effectively wrested the project to construct the section of the highway from the Chinese company and were now the beneficiary of 30,000 barrels of crude oil per day. This would only be affected by intermittent disruptions in oil flow through Sudan after the war erupted there.
In May 2025, Radio Tamazuj published an exclusive interview with Chinese Ambassador Ma Qiang, who, when asked about the fate of SDHS, which was constructing the road, diplomatically said works had been suspended due to a lack of payments.
“The Juba-Rumbek Road, which is the first oil-for-infrastructure (roads) project in South Sudan, is an important outcome of the meeting between the two heads of state during the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The road is constructed by the Chinese enterprise Shandong Hi-speed Group (SDHS). Over the past ten years, SDHS has constructed landmark projects such as the office buildings of DPOC and the Bank of South Sudan, and played an important role in the infrastructure construction of South Sudan,” the envoy explained at the time. “In December 2022, the South Sudanese government held the opening ceremony of the first section of road from Juba to Terekeka, at which President Salva Kiir Mayardit and I cut the ribbon. At present, the construction of the remaining sections of the road is unfortunately suspended due to overdue payment.”
Travellers and affected communities complained that ARC’s haphazard, unprofessional, and shoddy work led to floods taking over roads and inundating entire villages. The government has maintained silence on the matter to date. Frustrated by the inaction of both the state and national governments, the Rumbek East County communities, which were affected by devastating floods after shoddy road works by the company, dragged ARC to court. In August 2025, the High Court in Lakes State, sitting in Rumbek, ordered ARC to pay the affected communities, who had now been displaced by floods, $8 million. ARC and Bol, who was now a powerful vice president, did not even give the court ruling a cursory look.
Relatedly, in mid-2020, Winners Construction Company Limited was given the contract to work on the Juba-Torit-Nadapal Road project but the contract cost was not publicly disclosed, just like all other contracts involving Bol. Some reports mentioned African Resources Corporation (ARC) as the lead contractor, with Winners potentially a subcontractor or working in different phases or sections, adding more mystery to the project which was funded under the “oil for roads” initiative.
The entire Juba-Nadapal Road project, an international corridor linking South Sudan with Kenya, was initially estimated to cost around a whopping USD 29 billion for the full paved standard 365 kilometers when conceptualized. An earlier first phase of the project was expected to be funded by the World Bank at a cost of USD 80 million, but this funding was not approved due to conflict in the region.
In August 2020, Simon Akuei Deng (immediate former Commissioner General of the Revenue Authority and Bol confidant), the coordinator for the Winners Construction Company Limited visited Eastern Equatoria State to allocate some sections of the road project to local contractors to commence work.
“We are here to allocate some of the contractors their sections so that the work on the road can start. There are phases for the construction of the road,” Radio Tamazuj quoted him as saying at the time in Torit. “The first phase is the bush clearing, so we want to clear the road up to the Kenyan border. The second phase will start immediately after the clearing is finished, we will start building the road itself.”
Akuei reassured state officials and the people that President Salva Kiir is committed to constructing roads across the country, pointing out that the president has adopted a policy of oil for development.
Soon after Akuei’s visit, there was euphoria as local construction crews begun clearing trees and shrubs along the route of proposed Juba-Nadapal highway. He had promised that construction would begin promptly after bush clearance. The jubilation among state officials, citizens and local youth hired to clear bushes was however short lived as the project soon experienced repeated halts because company said the government did not consistently disburse the necessary funds. Work eventually ground to a halt after the clearance of bush for a few kilometers along the road.
The exact same scenario, involving Bol’s companies, was replicated on the Juba-Yei-Kaya Highway to Uganda.
South Sudan’s “Oil for Roads” project was intended to use oil revenues to fund road construction, but it has been heavily criticised for high levels of corruption, with a UN report finding that billions were diverted to politically connected companies like ARC that failed to deliver the promised infrastructure. While the intention was to improve connectivity for development and trade, reports indicate that a significant amount of funds has been siphoned off, with less than 10 per cent of the expected roads completed. This has led to accusations of a “predatory elite” and has been linked to a broader humanitarian crisis in the country.
The Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan (CHRSS) report, released on 16 September 2025, titled “Plundering a Nation: How Rampant Corruption Unleashed a Human Rights Crisis in South Sudan,” unearthed that Bol and associated elites diverted billions in public funds for personal gain, leaving over 90% of planned infrastructure projects unbuilt.
According to the two-year UN investigation, Bol was central in the “Oil for Roads” program, where $1.7 billion was channelled to companies linked to him between 2021 and 2024 for road contracts that were never delivered. In total, the commission estimates that $2.2 billion was siphoned off-budget, worsening a humanitarian crisis in which two-thirds of South Sudan’s 12 million people now face crisis-level food insecurity.
“Instead of directing national wealth toward serving the population, the country’s political leaders have systematically diverted both oil and non-oil revenues, through corruption and unaccountable schemes entrenched throughout government,” said Commissioner Barney Afako.
The report warned that this entrenched plunder has crippled South Sudan’s capacity to manage economic shocks and meet basic human rights obligations under international law.
Bol Mel, already under U.S. sanctions since 2017—renewed in 2025—was previously accused of diverting public funds through his company ABMC Thai–South Sudan.
Commissioner Yasmin Sooka underscored the devastating human toll of corruption: “On the ground, we have seen widespread deprivation and the absence of basic infrastructure and services — direct outcomes of corruption,” she said. “South Sudan’s leaders must end the systemic plunder and impunity. When public revenue becomes private fortune, peace cannot hold.”
The CHRSS made 54 recommendations, urging the government to strengthen accountability mechanisms, prosecute economic crimes, and prioritise spending on public welfare.
The rapid rise and very hard fall of Bol Mel
Benjamin Bol Mel, who has never undergone any real military or intelligence training, was quietly absorbed into the National Security Service (NSS) after independence. He lay low there watching and protecting Kiir’s interests and was quietly promoted through the ranks, albeit not doing any real work. With the NSS under the leadership of Gen. Akol Koor Kuc, Bol had a fancy office at the dreaded Blue House Headquarters, where he seldom sat, but Kiir unobtrusively elevated him to the military rank of Major General in the Internal Security Bureau (ISB) of the National Security Services (NSS).
The purpose was to give him clout in the security sector so that he could be unassailable and also not be questioned by seasoned Generals, many of whom were liberation struggle heroes. The other purpose was to insulate him from weathered politicians and the public who believe he is an amateur and wet behind the ears.
In what would turn out to be the most meteoric rise in South Sudan politics, President Salva Kiir first appointed Benjamin Bol Mel as the First Deputy Secretary-General for Political Mobilization and Organisation of the SPLM, which also made him a member of the party’s National Liberation Council (NLC) in March 2023. Bol had no political or military history in the SPLM/A, but members and observers let it slide and did not overreact. Kiir was testing the waters, bidding his time and the reaction, or lack of it, to Bol’s appointment, emboldened him. Kiir appointed Bol to the National Transitional Council (NTC), the body tasked with overseeing the implementation of the shaky peace agreement, in January 2025. Bol was rising but without raising eyebrows.
Then, unexpectedly, on 10 February 2025, Kiir fired the long-time vice president for the economic cluster, James Wani Igga, and replaced him with Benjamin Bol Mel. Known widely as a sanctioned businessman close to Kiir, buzz had been circulating about his increasing influence within the government, with reports suggesting that he has been involved in many of the country’s major decisions. Prior to his new appointment, Bol also served as the presidential envoy for special programs while simultaneously running ARC, which had won multiple government contracts, including one for the Juba-Bor highway.
In May, Bol was named first deputy chairman of the ruling SPLM Party, and the clincher came in September when Kiir promoted then Vice President Dr Benjamin Bol Mel to the rank of full general in the National Security Service. The promotion was Bol’s third major advancement in less than a year, and it fueled speculation that he was Kiir’s anointed, powerful heir.
Back to Bol’s rise to the vice presidency, he was clearly disliked by the powerful people in the ruling party and army, and civil servants and common folk across the country, who believed he was the source of cash scarcity and the reason government employees were not paid for months on end. Top party officials and the SSPDF top brass looked at and disparaged him as a political novice and civilian without liberation struggle credentials. They all fought and resisted him, some openly and others quietly.
On social media, there was suddenly a new meme of a rat in Bol’s likeness that fed on money. Jokes went viral about “the rat” eating money meant for service delivery and salaries.
Bol, naturally uncomfortable with crowds, a poor public speaker who preferred the company of those close to him, became more withdrawn but combative. At the funeral of Gen. David Majur, he declared that he would get involved in the security sector to make it more efficient because his economic cluster cannot function without security. The cyclic conflicts in Nasir in Upper Nile State between the SSPDF and locals became his pet project.
Bol also promised to pay civil servants’ salaries every 24th day of the month. He pulled it off once and failed to deliver. Successive finance ministers would explain, albeit unconvincingly, that they had deposited the salaries into employees’ bank accounts but that the banks were devoid of cash to payout. On the whole, Bol was unpopular and failed to endear himself to the people at all levels. His support base was limited to a section of people from his Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, family, friends and political cronies.
Kiir, a religious consumer of security intelligence, realised Bol was too unpopular to cut it. He soon set the latter to undertake unpopular projects and prepared Bol to be a fall guy.
Brazenly disregarding the negative press and public talk against him across the country and unmindful of the inner workings of Kiir’s mind, Bol became more abrasive, fixing his cronies in powerful and lucrative positions. He was also very visible on the road while going to and returning from work with a huge convoy of gleaming luxury 4X4 vehicles, complete with several military pickup trucks mounted with high-calibre machine guns. His lead cars forced other road users off the road, to the chagrin of the motoring public.
The hard, startling fall
On 12 November, President Kiir, in a surprise move, dismissed Bol Mel, who many thought was his possible successor. Kiir demoted Bol from his military rank of general to private and summarily dismissed him from the National Security Service (NSS). Bol was now a civilian.
The morning of the day of his sacking, the powerful Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel woke to find his security detail drastically reduced. Unphased, he gathered his few guards and cars left and went to the office, where he found information that he should return home and await further instructions. In the evening, he was fired by presidential decree on the government-owned television. A very brief era had ended.
Bol did not see Kiir unsheathe his sword, and the blow was decapitating and decisive. Some say Kiir had become wary about Bol’s ambitions, the way he projected power, and how he was lobbying for and placing his associates in powerful positions. Others argue that, in classic Kiir fashion, Bol had accomplished his mission and had no further use for Kiir after the latter and his family took control of their finances, which were held in trust by Bol. Yet other observers reason that Bol was elevated and used to take down First Vice President Dr Riek Machar, who is now facing trial for the Nasir incident. They argue that in the event Dr Machar is vindicated by the court, Kiir can lay the blame for his arrest at Bol’s door, reinstate Machar and go about business as usual.
However, some analysts contend that the timing of Bol Mel’s dismissal, shortly after the release of the UN report, is indicative of rising international pressure on Kiir to check corruption. However, officials in Kiir’s administration disputed the UN’s figures and faulted the country’s economic struggles on perennial conflict and intermittent oil flow and falling oil prices.
Sources close to the Kiir family also said the president’s children were getting disillusioned with Bol’s control over their father’s money and asked him to change the situation because it would be disastrous for them in the future.
Whatever the reason for Bol’s humiliating firing, analysts say he will not be the last, and follows others like former army chief Gen. Paul Malong, who was once close to Kiir and very powerful.
Finally, Bol’s arrest after being fired is clearly to keep him in check so that he does not flee and start revealing how public funds were pilfered. This is simply because, if he stole money, he was not alone and did it with the blessing of the most powerful leaders.
However, in Kiir’s world, people who have been removed from office often show their loyalty by writing letters of appreciation for having been given an opportunity to serve, and bounce back into office after a hiatus. Dr. Benjamin Bol Mel penned his appreciation letter and might just bounce back into Kiir’s administration, where loyal officials are routinely and suddenly reshuffled after being put out in the cold for a while.