John Akoon
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Minister of Finance and Planning, Dr. Barnaba Bak, appealed for public awareness about the functions of the Central Bank of South Sudan and other commercial banks in the country.
Bak, who was speaking during a public awareness conference organized by the Bank of South Sudan in Juba on Friday to educate the public on its mandates, stressed that the conference should be extended to educate officials and citizens about the roles of the Bank of South Sudan and commercial banks.
According to Bak, people are so clueless that they are questioning why he is not paying salaries while there is plenty of cash stored in containers at the Bank of South Sudan’s compound.
“In some cases, people come to me and say, you are not paying salaries and there is abundant cash in the Central Bank; don’t you see them at the compound parked in containers?” he narrated.
“And I always tell them that this money doesn’t belong to me; they are not mine; These are money from another institution like Commercial Bank,” Bak said, underscoring that it is important to sensitise the people on the mandate of the bank.
“I wish this awareness was going on for days, and if it is for one day then it needs to be rearranged in better ways so that workshops and seminars are organized in different parts of the country for the citizens to know the role of the Central Bank and what it does, and the role of the commercial banks,” Bak said.
He argued that some people do not want to go to a commercial bank to borrow money for their businesses or write business proposals to be funded by commercial banks.
“Our culture is so unique that people don’t even want to go to the commercial to borrow money,” he lamented.
“It is rather easier for them to come and ask you for capital as an individual than to write a proposal, a funding business proposal, and go to the commercial bank,” he said.
According to Bak, commercial banks are willing to support business projects, and the central bank’s responsibility is to raise awareness about the loan services by the lenders.
“We need to let people know that there are commercial banks that have money and they are ready to fund the project and business,” he said, adding, “the role of the Central Bank is to make people aware that entrepreneurs and all the business sectors can be funded by commercial banks.”
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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