South Sudan to cut budget spending by 35 pct

NAIROBI (Reuters) - South Sudan will cut its budget spending by 35 percent to cope with the drying up of oil revenues and plans to build a 10,000 barrels per day oil refinery in the capital, a senior Treasury official said on Tuesday.

"(The austerity measures) will save us 35 percent of the total budget. The total budget is 8.5 billion Sudanese pounds," Albino Chol Thiik, acting undersecretary of planning in the ministry of finance and economic planning, told Reuters on the sidelines of an infrastructure conference in Kenya's capital Nairobi.

Thiik said there would be no cuts to health, education and military spending and that the savings would come from areas like civil servants' allowances.

Building a refinery was a priority for the world's newest country, the acting undersecretary said. South Sudan has halted oil exports through Sudan partly because of a row over transit fees.