I didn’t loot public funds, says Lt Gen Marol
The Director-General of the Directorate of Nationality, Passport, Immigration, and Civil Registry, Lt. Gen. Atem Marol Biar, has countered social media reports alleging he has embezzled $1 million of public funds.
The report, published on Al Junubi’s Facebook page, also alleged that Lt. Gen. Marol sent $300,000 of the money to his children residing in Nairobi, Kenya. It further alleged that the immigration boss illegally possessed five government cars.
It further accused him of nepotism, alleging that Marol dismissed some officers of the directorate and replaced them with new ones from his state.
Addressing the media in his office on Friday, Lt. Gen. Marol said the reports were false information and were meant to tarnish his image, accusing some staff at the directorate of being behind the plan to frustrate him and force his resignation.
“First of all the Directorate of Nationality, Passport, Immigration and Civil Registry cannot raise such huge money. We do not have a dollar account because the government has closed the dollar accounts of all the institutions,” Lt. Gen. Marol said, “the account that we have is for pounds and it is only for salaries.”
“The money we collect, we send it to the National Revenue Authority. We do not keep it. I do not even have a dollar account at any bank. So where would I get such a large sum of money?” questioned the author of the report, whose identity remains unknown.
Lt. Gen. Marol called on the security organs to investigate and verify the report by some individuals from within the ranks of the directorate, who were unhappy with his positive development.
“I know them and I will not open any case against someone. Let them say whatever they want because I’m not doing anything wrong and all they’re saying are things I can’t do. They want to annoy me so that I can resign which I cannot because I know that I am doing the right things until the time the president will decide to remove me,” he said.
Lt. Gen. Marol who appointed in May 2021 to replace Lt. Gen. John Akot Maluth, whose tanner witnessed numerous machine breakdowns, paralyzing the issuance of national identity cards and passports.
Since his appointment, some citizens have commended Lt. Gen. Marol’s administration for efficiency as well as for opening eight branches of the directorate in Juba to ease the process of processing documents.
