Opinion: Puot Kang and Riek Machar Agenda at the Ministry of Petroleum

By Deng Achol Deng

Sep 24, 2021 — On March 13th 2020, Puot Kang Chol was appointed as the Minister of Petroleum under the ticket of the SPLM-IO of Dr. Riek Machar. Since then he has subsequently gone on to implement strategic ideas and policies of his boss, Dr. Riek Machar. 

Dr. Riek Machar is obsessed with two major goals; to win the upcoming elections scheduled for 2023 and thus get revenge on Salva Kiir and to punish the partners in the oil sector (Malaysians and Chinese) for standing with the government during the war from 2014-2018. 

Puot Kang seeks to win the hearts of South Sudanese on behalf of his boss by championing four causes;

1. Unified Human Resource Policy Manual (UHRPM)
2. Petroleum Local Content Regulation, 2019 
3. Cost Recovery Audit 
4. Environmental Audit. 

Although all these policies were designed during the time of his predecessor, Hon. Awow Daniel Chuang. Puot Kang wants to take the credit for their implementation and hence enable his boss, Dr. Riek Machar to win votes for the upcoming elections. 

The mentioned policies were always meant to be negotiated with the partners (CNPC & PETRONAS) and not to be implemented unilaterally without their input or buy-in. The UHPRM requires the partners to inject huge monthly expenditure for the salaries of national staff in the oil sector, this is despite the fact that there is massive over-employment in the oil companies and most employees don’t have clear job descriptions and are not subjected to regular key performance indicators matrixes. 

Puot Kang is muscling the partners to implement these policies aggressively and hence killing two birds with one stone by winning the hearts of South Sudanese for upcoming election and also punishing the Malaysian and Chinese for supporting the government during the war. The partners are now reconsidering their investment strategy in South Sudan and can decide to leave at any time. If the current partners exit South Sudan then the oil industry will come to a stand-still as there will be no further investment in the country. 

The Minister has further developed a hostile relationship with the Undersecretary and the Director General for Petroleum Authority who are the eyes of the government at the Ministry of Petroleum. He wants to restructure the Ministry of Petroleum and appoint seven (7) Director Generals with most of them coming from the ranks of SPLM-IO.

The SPLM-IG should ensure that the agenda of Puot Kang and Dr. Riek Machar should not succeed by supporting and further empowering its nominees at the Ministry of Petroleum who are the Undersecretary and Director General of the Petroleum Authority. Both are qualified and experienced in the oil sector unlike Puot Kang who is a political operative with no proven leadership skills. 

The Director General of Petroleum, Dr. William Anyak Deng has a PhD in Geophysics and Petroleum from Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Master in Applied Geophysics from University of Nairobi and he also participated in the liberation struggle as a member of the SPLA while the Undersecretary is a trained chemical engineer with vast experience in the gulf countries and Sudan.

The author, Deng Achol Deng, is a concerned South Sudanese and can be reached through email at southbiznewss@gmail.com

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