Oil-rich South Sudan passes anti-graft law

By Skye Wheeler

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - South Sudan has passed a long-awaited law to give a watchdog powers to look into hundreds of complaints of corruption in the oil-rich region, officials said on Wednesday.

Staff at the Anti-Corruption Commission told Reuters they were already planning to use the legislation to launch at least 10 new investigations.

The south's semi-autonomous government has long admitted corruption problems but no one has yet been charged, largely because of the lack of a fully functioning commission.

Graft is thought to have hampered efforts to re-build the region's economy after more than 20 years of north-south civil war that ended in a 2005 peace deal.

South Sudan's government coffers have been filled with millions of dollars of oil revenues that it secured under the 2005 peace accord. But citizens have complained they have seen little benefit from the revenues, large parts of which are spent on salaries and maintaining the region's large standing army.

Government officials last year said they were struggling to cope with the cost of "ghost workers" -- false names added to state payrolls by corrupt officials who then collect the salaries.

The semi-autonomous region set up an independent Anti-Corruption Commission in 2006.

But the body only got the power to launch full investigations this week, three years after its launch, when the south's government passed the South Sudan Anti-Corruption Commission (SSACC) Act.