South Sudan Supreme Airlines (Juba) is embroiled in a legal dispute with the South Sudan government about the airline's claim that the government owes it USD193 million for supplying subsidised food and fuel in 2013 during the South Sudanese civil war, according to local news reports.
Owner and manager Ayii Duang Ayii has twice failed to appear before the country's Transitional National Legislative Assembly's (TNLA) Committee on Trade and Industry after being summoned to clarify his claims about the contracts and payments. The committee has threatened to take legal action to compel him to appear if he continues to refuse, reports Radio Tamazuj, a Netherlands-based independent broadcaster covering South Sudan.
In response, Duang's lawyer, Wani Santino Jada, announced that the airline intends to sue the parliamentary committee for defamation for publishing the summons on social media, claiming this had damaged South Sudan Supreme Airlines' reputation. Among the leaked documents published on social networks were letters exchanged between the carrier and the Ministry of Finance regarding a sovereign guarantee and cheques worth millions of dollars.
Jada announced his client's intention to sue the national assembly in a letter published by the Sudan Post online newspaper. To resolve the issue amicably, he proposed that the committee cease its defamatory statements, issue a public retraction and apology, and pay the airline USD1.5 million in compensation. Should the matter remain unresolved, he warned the airline would escalate the dispute to the East African Court of Justice, the judicial body of the East African Community.
The TNLA committee has defended its right to summon Duang. "We can summon anyone holding public office or a private individual to come before the committee and provide evidence of producing documents," said chairman Mayen Deng Alier.
He said the committee sought clarity on the relationship between South Sudan Supreme Airlines and Noble Enterprise Ltd, a Kenyan company mentioned in the leaked documents related to the dispute. The committee also demanded comprehensive information on all contracts awarded to South Sudan Supreme Airlines by the government through the Ministry of Trade and Industry since 2013.
"There are documents which were trending on social media over the weekend whereby he [Duang] supplied strategic food items, fuel products, medicine, and building materials at a total cost of USD193 million, USD248,000, and then USD95.9 million and he copied a number of institutions," he explained. "And then there were documents which indicated that some payments were made; one payment of USD8 million, a payment of USD2 million, and then there was a payment of USD20 million," he added.
South Sudan Supreme Airlines has been dormant since the March 2021 crash of a Let 410 claimed the lives of 10 people and caused the suspension of the airline's operational permits. Following a two-year trial, the Malakia High Court in Juba in February 2023 ruled that the carrier pay USD800,000 to the victims' families, finding the airline guilty of negligence under Article 17 of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Montreal Convention. In September 2023, Duang was jailed for 21 days for failing to compensate the families but was released after the South Sudanese Supreme Court accepted his proposal to use his fixed and mobile assets as compensation.
