Africa-Press – South-Sudan. A lawmaker has echoed President Salva Kiir’s call on the Minister of Finance and Planning to allocate $100 million dollars for climate change response, in the fiscal year budget.
The legislator stressed the urgent need to accelerate efforts aimed at mitigating its adverse effects on vulnerable communities, ecosystems, and the country’s economic stability.
The world is currently experiencing extreme weather and climate events, record temperatures, wildfires, drought, flooding, and rapid ice melt in the polar regions.
South Sudan has also witnessed four years of unprecedented floods, resulting in the displacement of communities, destruction of infrastructure, and loss of lives.
Honorable Hellen Lokur-nyang Ladu, the Chairperson of the Committee for Climate Change and Forestry at the National Parliament, calls for the allocation of funds to implement climate resilience initiative and adopt environmentally friendly practices.
Hellen said South Sudan has been criticized at international climate conferences for not taking the issue of climate change seriously.
Speaking during a parliamentary session on Wednesday, Hon. Hellen states that climate change poses a threat to food security and the economic in the country.
“We should also know that South Sudan is being condemned in the international conferences for climate change because we are not taking the issue of climate change seriously,” Hellen said.
“Please allow the Ministry of Environment to do its job by allocating those funds. I just want to endorse the speech of the President by requesting the Minister of Finance to allocate 100 million USD that’s not a lot of money.”
“Let’s first work on our climate so that it gives a conducive environment of agriculture and economic growth.”
During the opening of the parliament session in March 2023, President Salva Kiir directed the Minister of Finance to allocate 100 million US dollars to address climate change.
Kiir pledged to intensify efforts to increase climate resilience, implement sustainable development practices, and explore renewable energy alternatives.
Meanwhile, the lawmakers and the Minister of Finance and Planning are expected to review the request during the third reading of the budget which is under scrutiny.
For her part, the Minister of Environment said the country has not taken the issue of climate change as a priority.
Josephine Napon stated that the ministry’s budget was being cut at a time when the country had experienced severe flooding in the last two years.
She says the Minister of Finance has allocated 700 million US dollars for activities for the Ministry of Environment describing it as insufficient.
“We have not taken the environment as our priority, if you see in the last two years we had flooding in this country and there was no even intervention from the government,” Napwon spoke during the second reading of the fiscal year 2023-2024 budget on Wednesday in Juba.
“We have tried as the Ministry of Environment to put everything in the budget but at the end of the day, it was all cut, the Ministry of Environment is standing with 700 million that’s nothing to the activities we have in the ministry.”
– Flood misery-
Minister Napwon further noted that climate change is at the forefront of global crises adding that it is evident in the seasonal flooding inundating the lowlands of the country.
“Hon. Speaker, I think something should be done, we known climate change is a global issue, and South Sudan is one of the countries that has been affected.”
“If you go to Unity State, we have seen our people are miserable, and they are staying right now in water, and we are unable to intervene.”
“I was summoned to the Council of States, and I explained myself as the Minister concerned because still there was nothing that is put in the budget about the issues on climate change and specially the flooding in the Republic of South Sudan.”
However, in the report of the Finance and Economic Planning Committee in Parliament, the Ministry of Environment was said to be among the overspending agencies in last’s year budget.
South Sudan’s Minister of Petroleum recently appealed to the developed countries to allow South Sudan to exploit its fossil resources and use them to transition to renewable energy.
For More News And Analysis About South-Sudan Follow Africa-Press
