South Sudan earmarks US$364 million supplementary budget to pay wages

South Sudan plans to approve additional 60 billion South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) (364 million U.S. dollars) as a supplementary budget to pay wages for its recently expanded transitional unity government.

Agok Makur, deputy minister of finance, disclosed that the supplementary budget will cater for the expanded transitional unity government formed since February.

“This budget is mainly to implement the peace agreement and pay for new salary structures which have been increased,” he told journalists on Friday in Juba.

Makur noted that the supplementary budget has been discussed and approved by the cabinet and is awaiting composition of the transitional parliament to pass it.

Makur said that work on the 2020/21 financial budget has been delayed due to the slow implementation of the 2018 revitalized peace agreement aimed at ending more than six years of conflict.

He cited the delayed installation of some spending agencies, like state governments and parliament as the reasons for the delay in the upcoming budget-making process for the 2020/21 budget.

” We are using the budget of the fiscal year 2019/2020 but we have seen it is not enough to cater for the current government implementing peace, that is why we have put up the supplementary of 60 billion SSP,” said Makur.

Meanwhile, South Sudan’s central bank on Wednesday said it was running out of foreign reserves as the local currency, SSP, continued to depreciate against the dollar.

The SSP is currently exchanging with the dollar at 400 SSP from the previous 32 SSP in June.

Makur said that the 2020/21 budget will be financed by both oil and non-oil revenues like gold, gum Arabic, in addition to funding from international donors.

The inflation in the country now stands at 35 percent while revenue from crude oil, the main source of revenue, has been affected by the slump in global oil prices caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem

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