A detailed investigation published by a Kenyan media organisation has drawn renewed attention to South Sudan’s public revenue systems, raising allegations of a politically connected “shadow treasury” structure linked to digital government contracts, oil export clearance systems and senior figures within the state administration.
The report focuses on claims surrounding Crawford Capital Ltd and its payments partner CapitalPay, firms said to operate key government digital platforms that handle tax collection, customs processing, visa services, trade permits and oil export documentation.
(JUBA) – A long running scheme involving the control of South Sudan’s digital revenue collection by a private company with deep links to the First Family has moved into a dangerous new phase, marked by the cross-border abduction of a whistleblower from Kenya. The operation of Crawford Capital, a firm registered in the United Kingdom, and its connection to Adut Salva Kiir Mayardit, the daughter of President Salva Kiir, has been documented by international bodies and is now the subject of urgent calls for accountability.
The formal appointment of Adut Salva Kiir as Senior Presidential Envoy for Special Programmes in August 2025 gave a state position to a network that was already operating in the shadows. Her role provides oversight of government initiatives and coordination of investment programmes. With her father facing visible health challenges, authority has been concentrated within the family. A respected scholar of South Sudanese governance, Professor Jok Madut Jok, noted in a June 2026 interview that the constitutional basis and limits of her position remain unclear, even as her influence reaches into economic affairs, appointments and state security.
The instrument of this economic power is Crawford Capital, a company that secured a no-bid government contract in November 2019. The agreement gave the firm exclusive control over South Sudan’s e-government services, including visa processing, tax collection, trade permits and customs clearance. Most critically, the company operates the Electronic Crude Oil Accreditation Permit system, the digital gateway through which every barrel of South Sudanese crude oil must pass for export.
The contract, signed with the Ministry of Information, Communication Technology and Postal Services, awards 75 percent of all revenues collected to Crawford Capital and leaves the Government of South Sudan with 25 percent. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan described this arrangement in a September 2025 report as a clear indicator of abuse of public office. The contract further exempts the company from paying taxes, including corporation tax and value added tax, for the first ten years.
The scale of the financial drain is enormous. A single oil shipment can generate fees between 146,000 and 166,000 US dollars for the company. Between January and October 2025 alone, South Sudan exported 22 cargoes of crude oil. The flow of money into the private company occurs against a backdrop of economic collapse.
The World Bank estimated the economy shrank by 24 percent in 2025, while the International Monetary Fund projected a further contraction. South Sudan ranks at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index. The UN Commission has stated that corruption is not a side effect but the engine of the country’s decline, directly causing hunger and preventable deaths. Between 2020 and 2024, less than 48 percent of collected non-oil revenues reached core government services. Health received under 0.9 percent of the national budget.
The ownership of Crawford Capital is a web of political families and foreign connections. The majority shareholder, holding 68 percent, is Garang Mayom Kuoc Malek, the son of a former deputy minister. The second largest shareholder, with 26 percent, is a Kenyan businessman, Jeremy Gisemba. The founding equity was distributed among the children of powerful political families, including the son of South Sudan’s ambassador to Turkey. The personal connection to the First Family is long-standing. The company’s co-founders previously formed an aviation firm, Air Afrik Aviation Limited, with the President’s son, Mayar Salva Kiir, in 2013. Investigative reports describe the entire structure as Adut Salva Kiir’s private treasury.
The regulatory body meant to oversee this sector, the National Communications Authority (NCA), has been captured by the same network. The NCA Director General, appointed in November 2025, came directly from the Office of the President. A South Sudanese news outlet, The Juba Mirror, reported that he had privately lobbied Adut Salva Kiir and Garang Malek to secure the post.
The Chairperson of the NCA Board simultaneously serves as Deputy Chairperson of E-Government in the very ministry that signed the original Crawford contract. This means the regulator and the regulated ministry are part of a single, closed system. When the Minister of Trade, Atong Kuol Manyang Juuk, attempted to suspend Crawford Capital’s operations in March 2026, her order was overruled within 24 hours by Vice President James Wani Igga, who chairs the government’s Economic Cluster.
The internal crackdown on those who know how the system works has been systematic. South Sudan has cycled through nine finance ministers since 2020. In early 2026, a former central bank governor, a former finance minister, a former undersecretary for petroleum and a security general were all arrested. Officials who could explain where the money goes have been removed. The former finance minister, Bak Barnaba Chol, was arrested in February 2026 while trying to cross into Uganda.
The drive to protect the network has now moved beyond South Sudan’s borders. In the early hours of 10 June 2026, Athorbey Al-Gaddhaffy-Dit, a Kenyan-South Sudanese national, was abducted by armed men in Nairobi’s Kilimani district. He was a whistleblower who had been sharing information on the inner workings of Crawford Capital with journalists and international investigators. He had previously filed statements at Nairobi police stations, declaring that if he were harmed or abducted, Adut Salva Kiir Mayardit and Garang Mayom Kuoch should be investigated. From Nairobi, he was transported to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and deported to South Sudan. He is now held in a military intelligence facility in Juba. His family has warned that his life is in danger due to underlying medical conditions.
The location of the abduction and the corporate registration of the firm create international legal obligations. Crawford Capital maintains its registration in the United Kingdom, a status that gives it access to international banking and a look of respectability. The United States State Department has now placed the company under sanctions. The UK’s National Crime Agency possesses legal powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Bribery Act to investigate UK-linked corporate structures used for corruption abroad. The Kenyan government, for its part, is under pressure to demand the return of its citizen, who was removed from Kenyan soil without a court process in an act Amnesty International Kenya described as having all the signs of an enforced disappearance.
The economic pain in South Sudan has a direct line back to this lost public money. For every dollar kept by the private company through the 75 percent contract share, the public purse in Juba lost a dollar that could have funded a hospital, a teacher’s salary or a water borehole in a state like Jonglei. The UN Commission documented how the company even placed an illegal levy on fuel imports for tax-exempt humanitarian organisations, disrupting food distribution at a time when over 60 percent of the population faced severe hunger.
The US sanctions designation, the evidence compiled by the UN Commission and the coverage by investigative outlets have dragged the shadow treasury into the open. The calculation that the cross-border abduction of a whistleblower would bury the story has not worked. Every day the detainee remains in a military facility deepens the international focus on a revenue system that has been siphoning public funds from one of the world’s poorest nations for seven years.