10/08/2025
- Ex-minister plots to kill a young man over a business dispute
By Tearz Ayuen
Nairobi, Wednesday (October 8, 2025) - All over the world, individuals with shared interests come together to establish and run successful businesses. And whenever disputes arise, they seek legal intervention.
In South Sudan, however, some people choose guns, threats, and coercion as a form of avoiding litigation, especially when they are powerful and in the wrong.
One young man has fallen prey to such an uncouth and mafia-like approach in Juba. He is Lual Deng Wil, a young businessman based in Juba.
And the ‘mafia boss’ is Stephen Dhieu Dau, the former minister of Finance and Planning.
In 2012, Lual and Dhieu established the Easy Services Investment Company (ESICO), each holding a 50 percent share.
Two years later, the company secured a contract to offer catering services for oilfields in Paloch.
Following a fallout in 2021, Lual politely left the company and demanded compensation for his seven-year service, a request Dhieu tries to ‘threaten away’.
“When Lual asked for my compensation and money owed to him, he resorted to retaliation by claiming, ‘There’s missing money in the company,’” a source privy to the disagreement told this publication on Tuesday.
According to court documents obtained by this publication, the former minister and current Melut community leader owes Lual millions of dollars in unpaid dividends, assets, and labor compensation.
The young man’s problems quadrupled when he sought legal redress recently. To silence him, Dhieu has been hiring rogue security officers to disappear his former business partner.
“His intention is to have Mr. Lual kidnapped, killed, or harmed so that he can get away with the case and all the properties,” the source who requested anonymity added.
In addition, Dhieu recently intensified his intimidation campaign when Lual filed another court case involving the land on which the ESICO sits.
The sole owner of the plot, Lual, who has been suffering personal financial constraints inflicted on him by his former business partner, had to sell it to meet some of his obligations.
Upon sale of the piece of land, Dhieu declined to vacate it for the new owner; he instead accused Lual of forging the land documents “for the purpose of cheating”.
The middle-aged man, who has also held the position of the minister of Petroleum, went ahead to secure a warrant of arrest against Lual.
“…a warrant of arrest has been issued and returned and whereas it was shown to my satisfaction that you abscond and conceal yourself to avoid the ex*****on of the warrant of arrest,” wrote Latjor Kueth Jal, senior public prosecution attorney, on September 12, 2025.
Systemic impunity, according to UN reports, is a central driver of violence, corruption, and instability, fueling a cycle of horrific human rights violations in South Sudan.
Perpetrators of serious crimes, including government officials and military personnel, routinely go unpunished, undermining the rule of law and destroying public trust.
With Stephen Dhieu—who has been named in various reports as a profiteer in the South Sudan bloody conflict—walking around with the cudgel of impunity, whether Lual Deng W***y will live or die under ‘mysterious circumstances’ depends on the timely involvement of the higher judicial and police authorities in Juba.
He has yet to comment on the matter.
(Tearz Ayuen is a South Sudan’s author and editor-at-large based in Nairobi, Kenya. He cannot be reached.)
