By Bosco Bush
The Council of Ministers, in its regular meeting, has returned 2.4 trillion fiscal year budget proposal tabled by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, citing a lack of priority inputs.
Eng. Awow Daniel Chuang, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, presented the 2024/2025 Fiscal Year budget proposal, worth Two Trillion, Four Hundred Fifty-Five Billion, Nine Hundred Twenty-Nine Million, Five Hundred Fifty-Five Thousand, and Two Hundred Ninety-One (2,455,929,555,291) South Sudanese Pounds.
The main priorities outlined in the budget proposal were to accelerate economic recovery through investments in agriculture-related projects by allocating 10 per cent to the agriculture sector and support farmers.
Addressing journalists after the meeting, Deputy Minister of Information, Jacob Maiju Korok, stated that after thorough deliberations, the Council advised the Ministry of Finance to return the budget and incorporate additional priorities.
“The decision was to advise the ministry of finance to take the budget back to go and incorporate inputs specially the priorities. So, the ministry of finance is going to incorporate the priorities and bring it back to the council of misters again for deliberations and to be passed,” Korok stated.
He added that, the source of funding for the budget will be through collection of non-oil revenue, partial crude oil flow, loans and grants.
On the expenditures, Korok stated that the government is going to minimize expenditures by focusing on paying salaries and other capital expenditures.
“There has been a tremendous cut in expenditure because of the disturbances of oil flow. The government will only pay wages, salaries, minimal expenditure for the same categories, and other capital expenditures.”
On June 30, 2024, the Ministry of Finance suspended payments to government spending agencies as the fiscal year 2023/2024 closes.
However, about 9 months’ salary arrears of civil servants and organized forces salaries were not paid.