South Sudan received its share in oil revenue for 2005 – official
Feb 1, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — A source at the Federal Finance Ministry has said that the government of southern Sudan has received 702m dollars, this being part of its share of the oil revenue for 2005, the Sudanese al-Ray al-Aam reported.
Accordingly, there is nothing outstanding except a balance of 42m dollars which will be transferred to it once last month’s export revenues are received, the Finance ministry said.
Al-Ray al-Aam reported that the share of the southern government in the period January-December 2005 totalled 744m dollars. Of this amount, 544m dollars is from oil export revenues while 190m dollars is from the returns on local produce.
The federal ministry of finance expressed surprise at the comments by the first vice-president and president of the southern Sudan government, Salva Kiir Mayardit, that the ruling National Congress party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, (SPLM) had differences over oil revenues.
In his 28 January press conference, Salva Kiir said his northern partners had not given the south half of Sudan’s oil revenues as the deal requires.
“We still have not got the real share of the oil revenues,” he told reporters in Khartoum, adding there were differences over the amount of oil produced in Sudan. The northern oil minister puts oil production at around 330,000 barrels per day (bpd), but the SPLM says it could be as high as 450,000 bpd.
The source said the southern government had not yet spent the money transferred to its bank accounts.
The SPLM had permission to verify the oil accounts and pointed out that the state minister for finance, Lwal Deng, was responsible for coordinating with the south on foreign cooperation and financial matters.
The Sudanese official further said that the southern government lacked capacity and experience in the field of accountancy, banking and monetary processes. He added that as a result of this, it has not been able to draw up a budget for the south and was dependent on foreign expertise in this regard.
Since the last week, and in a way to deny Salva Kiir accusation of slowness in the peace process the ruling NCP demanded all its ministers to publish figures and reports on the CPA implementation.
(ST)