NSS releases Lakes State corruption whistleblower
The supervisor of Lekakudu Payam, Lakes State, Mager Achiengwei Agou, who was arrested in Rumbek for exposing alleged graft in Yirol East County, has finally been set free by the state security authorities.
Mager said the case was settled after he was forced to retract his statement by apologising to the state ministry of education, as well as the state National Security Service (NSS) for posting the report on social media instead of contacting the ministry.
“To all media houses monitoring the problem from November 4, 2012, up to now, [the issue] has ended successfully in the hands of the Ministry of General Education and Instructions Lakes State Rumbek. So, all the media houses are aware today that the case between me and my ministry has finished successfully, ” Mager wrote on Facebook yesterday.
In an exclusive interview yesterday, the Lekakudu supervisor told The City Review in an exclusive interview that he was set free by the state national security service on condition by the state minister of education that he would talk to the media to retract his accusations on the misuse of public funds.
However, he said he could not retract the statement, which, according to him, was true. Hence, he was allowed to post on social media that he had been set free.
Open arrest
Earlier this month, the state national security service granted Mager what they called “open arrest” so that he would be reporting to their headquarters every morning as they monitored him.
The arrest
The order for his arrest was issued by the state ministry of education for his alleged exposure of misappropriation of Girls Education South Sudan (GESS) funds and the teachers’ impact payment.
According to several sources, Mager was trapped by the security agents when he went to the office of the Director-General in the state ministry of education.
“He was arrested in the morning after being called by the Director-General to receive the incentives for one of the teachers. He was detained by the state security in Rumbek, ” said a source who preferred anonymity at the time of arrest for fear of reprisal.
However, Mager hailed the state national security service for not subjecting him to inhuman treatment.
“They were very good people. “They did not beat me; all they said was that I should go home because the people who accused me failed to come to their office,” he said.
Reshuffling ordered
The State Minister for General Education and Instruction, Kongor Deng Kongor, reshuffled the county education directors after receiving the report on the misappropriation of funds.
Sabino Mabor Aleng, who was accused, was transferred to Awerial County as the county director there. This sparked fear among the Yirol East County supervisors, who were concerned that their case might be dropped because of such transfers.
However, Kongor assured us that the impact payment was the right of added teachers because they did not have their names in the staff payroll, therefore, they should not have been denied their rights.
The report
Mabor was accused in December of squandering girls’ cash transfers. Mager, who accused him, claimed that some girls were not paid because some teachers paid ghost names.
“The community contribution fee of SSP 7.5 million is contributed at 3,500 per child in the school for the whole year so that it can support teachers when salaries are delayed. This money was given to the director instead of us, the supervisors, collecting it,” he complained.
Mager claimed the county education director took SSP 7.5 million from girls’ cash transfers and sold school bags and blackboards donated to schools by UNICEF.
