South Sudan’s National Elections Commission (NEC) has awarded a USD 52 million contract to RAK Media Co. Ltd, a company owned by Kenyan businesswoman Anne Kathure Rutere, to supply electoral materials ahead of the country’s general elections scheduled for December 22, 2026, according to highly placed sources within the commission.
The contract covers the printing and supply of ballot papers, ballot boxes, voter registers, voter identification cards, electoral codes of conduct, results forms, identification badges for election officials and training materials.
According to the sources, the National Elections Commission had already made an advance payment of USD 28 million directly into personal bank accounts belonging to Rutere and her husband, South Sudanese businessman Akol Ayii.
Rutere is married to Ayii, a prominent businessman associated with Trinity Energy Limited, a company sanctioned by the United States government.
The couple’s business interests extend across several sectors, with the document linking them to Pacific Petroleum, M-Gurush, The City Review newspaper and Amoco Construction Co. Ltd, among other enterprises operating in South Sudan, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The circumstances surrounding the award of the USD 52 million contract have also placed Senior Presidential Envoy on Special Programs Adut Salva Kiir Mayardit at the centre of the procurement controversy.
According to highly placed sources cited in the document, the contract was awarded to RAK Media following directives from the presidential envoy in exchange for USD 10 million in kickbacks intended to support the Office of the Senior Envoy on Special Programs and the Adut Salva Kiir Foundation, popularly known as the ASK Foundation.
Mrs. Anne Kathure Rutere is a shrewd and ruthless businesswoman who has been accused several times by Kenyan employees in her companies of “mistreatment and failure to pay them their salaries”.
She has also been accused of threatening to kill some of the staff who have
raised complaints against her with one case under active case investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Kenya.
She has also been involved in Government-to-Government Arrangement to bring in petroleum product through her company Pacific Petroleum. If allowed to proceed, this arrangement would have increased the price of petroleum products in South Sudan by almost twice the current pump prices.
RAK Media was also paid USD 11 Million in 2021 by the Ministry of Education and Instructions to supply text books to primary and secondary schools in South Sudan but up to date, no single text book has been supplied to any single school in the whole country.
Sources at Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) say the over 1 million printed text books destined for South Sudan were auctioned to be converted into tissue paper due to failure by Mrs. Anne Rutere and her husband Akol Ayii to clear these books in Mombasa.
Below are photos textbooks auctioned by Kenya Revenue Authority after being printed and abandoned by RAK Media in Mombasa, Kenya.
