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Landlord of the South Sudan Anti-corruption Commission has locked his building after the institution failed to pay more than seven million pounds rent arrears, according to Jeramiah Ater, the Executive Director of the Commission.

He disclosed that the institution owes the property-owner seven million two hundred thousand pounds [7,200,000 SSP], accrued from one year of rent non- payment.

“We did not pay the rent for one year which is 7,200,000 SSP. So, the landlord came in and locked the main door of our office this morning [Monday] around 8 am. And we are now sitting outside,”

Ater said the staff, to their dismay, found the offices were locked.

“We are just sitting outside, and everything is inside. So we cannot work, we just come to the compound and we are just sitting since we got the office locked down. They locked it when we were there.”  
 
Ater said the decision by the angry landlord came a month after he filed a court case over the non-payment.

“So we requested the payment, we processed everything, the contract and we sent it there and it was approved and is not paid, we don’t know why they did not pay,”

“We follow it up and so they tell us tomorrow it will be paid and next week just like that, so we don’t know why they did not pay.”

He is now calling on the Ministry of Finance to release the rental so that their staff resume work saying ” it is not us who pay the rent, but it’s the finance who pay the rent.”

The South Sudan Interim Constitution mandates the Anti-corruption Commission to investigate cases of corruption in the public as well as in the private sector and to combat administrative malpractices in public institutions.