By Philip Buda Ladu
The Minister of Finance and Planning on Friday, tabled the national budget amounting to 862 billion South Sudanese pounds to Council of Ministers as the first budget ceiling for the financial year 2022/2023in its first presentation.
The Cabinet in its Regular meeting No.6/2022 chaired by President Salva Kiir on Friday the 27th May 2022 listened to a presentation by Agak Achuil Lual the Minister of Finance and Planning, on financial year budget for 2022/2023 budget ceiling.
Minister of Information and Government’s Spokesperson, Michael Makuei said the budget presentation was on the envelope and the indicative ceiling for all the government institutions and the ministries for the financial year 2022/2023.
He underscored, the budget was appreciated, but Ministry of Finance was directed to reconsider and review those areas of concern from the respective government institutions and ministries as the case maybe.
“After thorough deliberation on the budget, the Cabinet have decided that the envelope of the ceiling should be reviewed; it should go back to the Ministry of Finance and Planning so that the institutions concerned or the Undersecretaries of the institutions concerned should report immediately to the Ministry of Finance so that they can have further discussions on their areas of concern before the next meeting because in the next meeting the budget has to come to the Cabinet in its complete form,” Makuei told reporters, Friday.
Minister Makuei further stated that after thorough deliberation, the Cabinet appreciated the presentation and the efforts exerted because this will be the first budget that will be passed by the Cabinet to the Parliament and probably passed by the Parliament before the end of the financial year.
The information minister noted that, this budget ceiling is the beginning of the presentation of the fiscal year budget.
He said, as financial year will be ending in June 30, they are optimistic that this time the 2022/2023 budget will go through its normal procedures of passing up to the parliament before the end of the 2021/2022 financial year.
“The ceiling is what gives the ceiling to each and every institution and after being passed by the Cabinet now it will go to those institutions and put that amount into their budget in terms of chapter one, chapter two and chapter three accordingly,” he said.
“So, this ceiling was the first part of the budget and the ceiling was eight hundred and sixty-two billion South Sudanese Pounds and it is divided as follows. Seven hundred and sixty-three billion South Sudanese pounds will be from the oil revenues and ninety-nine billion pounds will be from the non-oil revenues and that’s from the taxes,” Makuei elaborated.
The Information Minister stated that the budget ceiling is expected to be tabled back in the Council of Ministers meeting next week after the Finance Ministry would have met with the Undersecretaries in the various Government Ministries and institutions to incorporate their priorities and concerns.