By Mans Nyainda
I have met, not once, not twice and not thrice, one Lawrence Lual Malong Yor Jr., the flamboyant South Sudanese business mogul at the Intercontinental Hotel and more recently at the New Stanley Hotel. The kid rolls big with a bevvy of beauties hobnobbing around him. This is an exuberant and extravagant young man who brags about arbitrary acquisition of public tenders in South Sudan to secure mining contracts and claims to be richer than the former Chief of General Staff, General Malong and President Salva Kiir combined.
His penchant for flashy suits and flying in private jets while sleeping in exquisite presidential suites that go for as much as 250,000 Kenya Shillings a night has seen him spend impulsively billions of money looted from South Sudanese public coffers while the people back in his home country are wallowing in abject poverty and untold pauperism. It is not lost on us that South Sudan, beside being a country experiencing senseless violence, is among the poorest nations in the world.
Here in Nairobi, he is chauffeured around in a beastly armoured Lexus LX 570, a chase car full of bodyguards and a lead car with full siren on like a VVIP because of his intricate web of connection with the high and the mighty in the Kenyan Government. This web is as a result of bankrolling campaigns of prominent politicians in the run up to the 2017 General Elections.
‘Young Tycoon’ as he famously refers to himself is a crudely arrogant psychopath who primitively flaunts on social media his ill gotten wealth from the bloody money of the South Sudanese people. He openly brags about his direct links and access to South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and former Chief of General Staff General Malong, both of whom oversaw wanton murder of innocent civilians since 2013 when the civil war broke out.
I am reliably informed that he transacts businesses on behalf of top South Sudanese warlords sanctioned by the United Nations for crimes against humanity. In fact, he globetrots frequently to America, Asia and other European countries where he checks into executive and world class hotels with the sole aim of securing business deals for his blood-thirsty bosses. This is how they launder stolen money and stash them in offshore accounts and safe havens.
He has vast interests, on behalf of his bosses, in South Sudan mining sector with multi billion companies that are involved in mining of oil, gold and diamond, among other minerals.
In an 8-minute video that did rounds on social media in 2016, Malong Yor captured himself rolling in a pool of hundred dollar bills where he claimed to have donated 1M dollar to a church in Nairobi West, 5M dollars to Kenya Red Cross and another 5M dollars to South Sudan Red Cross.
As a nation, we cannot sink this low. We cannot be conduits to the evils that are being perpetuated against the innocent people of South Sudan. They are even transporting these ills into our nation and we are sitting pretty watching and entertaining them. My heart bleeds for that innocent child being subjected to hunger pangs and ultimate death because of insatiable greed for power and money. My heart bleeds for that mother in South Sudan who pays tax but never receives any service apart from rape and death.
My heart bleeds for South Sudan.
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