By Peter Luzinda
NATIONAL
The former South Sudan Finance Minister has been arrested at the Nimule, Uganda South Sudan Border as he allegedly tried to escape to Uganda on Friday night, 27th February, 2026.
According to sources Dr. Bak Barnaba Chol who was recently dropped from his cabinet position by President Salva Kiir in a sudden reshuffle, was intercepted by security personnel at around 8pm as he tried to escape to Uganda on a boda boda.
Sources further intimated that the former minister was found with large sums of U.S dollar notes during his arrest.
Footage circulating on social media shows the former minister with apparent bloodstains on his clothing following a pursuit by security forces.
Chol’s arrest comes days after he handed over his office to the newly appointed finance minister, Salvatore Garang Mabiordit.
Another video captures Dr. Chol in a conversation with officers who arrested him Dinka language.
Here is the transcribed version;
Officer 1: Asima ya comrade! = listen comrade!”
Dr. Bak: Acin deya bi xa sur = no need of filming me
Officer 2: Aci luel ka war xen. Leu ba wuor yen? = He said could run faster than me. Did he think he can run faster than me?
Officer 3: Acin ran sur yin! Acin ran sur yin! = no one is filming you! No one is filming you!
Dr. Bak: No! Yen kin asur wen, aci path = No! It is being filmed by the other guy, which isn’t good.
Officer 2 & 3: Aca lek yin bar bei! Bar bei, bar bei! = I told you come out! Come out, come out! (Dr. Bak was in the water)
Dr. Bak: (wiping his face…)
Former Minister of Finance was yesterday caught in Nimule – Uganda border trying to escape the crackdown of arrest of officials who are accused of corruption in South Sudan.
Dr Chol, a professor at the University of Juba had previously served as finance minister from August 2023 until March 2024, however his second tenure in the position only lasted three months.
By the time of this publication, the South Sudanese government hadn’t yet issued a statement on the arrest, however observers intimated that this might be part of a widening crackdown on high-profile figures in the country’s finance and security sectors.
At the beginning of this week, South Sudan’s former central bank governor, Moses Makur Deng Manguak was also placed under house arrest in Juba shortly after returning from medical treatment in India where he underwent head surgery.
Manguak led the Bank of South Sudan from January to August 2022.
