EU earmarks $285m for provision of services in South Sudan

March 28, 2013 (JUBA) – The European Union (EU) diplomat to South Sudan has said his organization has availed 285 million US dollars to support some of the development projects for service delivery in South Sudan.

Sven Kuehn Von, EU ambassador to South Sudan, told the press on Wednesday that the money will be injected into the health and education sectors in the country.

He revealed the EU’s pledge after his meeting with the country’s vice-president, Riek Machar Teny, where they also discussed a wide range of other issues in the country.

The urgent need for South Sudan to sign the Cotonou agreement, which would also unveil some of the access routes to other financial organizations, was also discussed with the leadership, Von told the press.

Among the other issues discussed, he said, included the recently signed matrix in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, by Sudan and South Sudan, for implementing the September 27, 2012 agreement between the two presidents, as well as discussed the upcoming conference in Washington DC in April during which to mobilize support for South Sudan’s economy.

South Sudan’s economy has been negatively affected by the shutdown of the oil production in March last year due disagreements between the two countries over transit fees.

The two neighbouring nations have however agreed on the fees to be charged and signed the matrix for immediate resumption of the oil production, which is expected to start flowing next week.

South Sudan has also embarked on attracting direct foreign investment into the country in order to realize implementation of huge and expensive development projects costing tens of billions of US dollars which the young nation could not successfully implement using its normal annual budgets.

(ST)