South Sudan parliament approves SSP 11.3bn budget

August 13, 2014 (JUBA) – The South Sudanese parliament has approved an annual budget amounting to a total of 11.3 billion South Sudanese Pounds (SSP).

The budget, which covers the 2014/15 fiscal year, was passed with little changes on 12 August. It prioritises agriculture, road construction, assistance to states affected by the conflict, funds constituency development projects and payment of arrears.

Goc Makuac Mayol, head of parliamentary committee for economy, development and finance said the house had cut SSP 162 million from expenditure meant for travel cost, training, supply, tools and materials and other unexplained operating expenditures found in the draft budget by the ministry of finance.

The cuts, said the lawmaker, were made to fund agriculture and the road sectors.

“The parliament recommended the minister of finance and economic planning to rehabilitate roads facilitating transport of local produce to access the markets. The Juba-Kajo-Keji, Juba Yirol- Shambe, Juba- Yei-Kaya, Juba-Bor, Juba-Mundri-Yambio, have identified in the budget as priority,” Mayol told reporters on Tuesday.

Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity are the states which will receive special assistance as they are the areas which have witnessed destruction of key infrastructures.

The legislator said the committee made the recommendations based on the fact that some of the needs observed in the report were critical for the economic growth of the country. The committee also allocated SSP 750,000 pounds to the council of states for domestic travel to the Greater Pibor Administrative Area and Greater Juba district.

Meanwhile, SSP 2 million was also set aside for the recruitment of personnel to work in the orthopedic and rehabilitation centre while directing finance ministry to streamlined collection of revenues from all government and non-governmental agencies and ensure that they are remitted to the national revenue funds to support the fiscal budget.

(ST)