A/HRC/40/CRP.1 management.1073 As already discussed, the NSS has a pervasive presence on the country’s oil fields.1074 Nilepet has been used repeatedly by the South Sudanese Government as an instrument to finance the ongoing inter-ethnic armed conflict in the country. For example in January 2016, a report by Global Witness indicated that Nilepet’s Managing Director was instructed by the then Minister of Petroleum and Mining, as well as by the Director General of the Internal Security Bureau of the NSS, to provide payments for expenses by the South Sudan’s security services, which at the time were engaged in armed conflict in the oil-rich areas of former Upper Nile State.1075 Nilepet has also been named in several reports by the UN Panel of Experts as being complicit in diverting oil revenue to finance the Government’s war efforts.1076 Nilepet appears to have been used to channel oil money to finance the war without any difficulty given the lack of independent oversight of its commercial and financial activities,1077 possibly because of its ambiguous status as a private company that is wholly state-owned, the company has been able to circumvent relevant legal obligations for public reporting and auditing of firms in the oil sector. Information on the company’s net income from its oil-related business, its accounts, and expenditure has reportedly never been publicized.1078 Furthermore, for example, the company has admitted to the use of crude oil for purchasing (refined oil) fuel1079, even though transparent business practices would ensure that these two processes are separate.1080 As mentioned above, the R-ARCSS has explicitly provided for the review and transformation of Nilepet, to better fulfil its responsibilities for the management of an important national resource in accordance with South Sudanese law. 1081 Because earlier attempts to supervise and regulate Nilepet though a special law have been unsuccessful, 1082 and in view of the significant information pointing to the company’s role in facilitating the armed conflict and contributing to a lack of transparency and the inequitable distribution and use of oil revenues, the Commission considers that the prompt implementation of this article in the R-ARCSS will be highly important; particularly for the new dispensation of the Transition Period. i) Corporate accountability – International oil companies International companies historically have owned the majority of shares in the oil producing joint ventures, since oil was first produced in southern Sudan prior to its independence. All of the companies listed above under sub-section VI(E)(2)(c), have been doing business in Sudan and South Sudan for many years, while some Western European and Canadian companies that had operated there pulled out because of well-publicised public outcry in their home countries over oil-related human rights abuses in Sudan.1083 Consequently, international companies operating in South Sudan should be well aware of the 1073 Witness 936, ERN 101736-101768, para. 7. See also Africa Oil & Power, Fast Track Resumption of Oil Production at Unity Oilfields, 26 November 2018, retrieved at https://africaoilandpower.com/2018/11/26/fast-track-resumption-of-oil-production-at-unity-oilfields/. 1075 Global Witness, “Capture on the Nile, South Sudan’s state-owned oil company, Nilepet, has been captured by the country’s predatory elite and security services”, 2018, pp. 3-4. 1076 UN Security Council, Report of the Panel of Experts on South Sudan, UN Doc No: S/2016/793, 19 September 2016, para. 15; UN Security Council, Final Report of the Panel of Experts on South Sudan, UN Doc No: S/2016/70, 22 January 2016, para. 56. 1077 Global Witness, “Capture on the Nile, South Sudan’s state-owned oil company, Nilepet, has been captured by the country’s predatory elite and security services”, 2018, pp. 7-9 and 19-20. 1078 Global Witness, “Capture on the Nile, South Sudan’s state-owned oil company, Nilepet, has been captured by the country’s predatory elite and security services”, 2018, pp. 7-9 and 19-20. 1079 Nilepet Magazine, November 2018, Issue No. 001, p. 7. 1080 Confidential Meeting, Juba, 15 December 2018. 1081 R-ARCSS, Article 4.8.1.14.14. 1082 Global Witness, “Capture on the Nile, South Sudan’s state-owned oil company, Nilepet, has been captured by the country’s predatory elite and security services”, 2018, p. 7. 1083 Patey, L., The New Kings of Crude, China, India and the Global Struggle for Oil in Sudan and South Sudan, 2014, pp. 66-76. 1074 137