Mamer Abraham
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. President Salva Kiir said the government has plans to bring down commodity prices and exchange rates in a bid to stabilize the market.
In his State of the Nation address on Saturday, ahead of the 12th independence anniversary, Kiir said his administration was planning to procure food from the region to lower commodity prices.
“Your government is also exploring sourcing food supplies from the region that would be sold at subsidised prices through national companies with the requisite experience in management and distribution of such items,” Kiir said.
“These two measures will serve as mitigating factors for the current economic difficulties as we work to find a permanent solution.”
He emphasised the government’s commitment to reinforcing the weakening South Sudanese pounds through a 400 percent salary increment that is currently under deliberation in the parliament and would be effective as soon as the budget for the 2023/2024 fiscal year is approved.
“On economic difficulties, your government is aware of the negative impact of high prices in the market due to the weakening of our pound. To address this, the cabinet resolved to increase salaries for civil servants by 400 per cent,” he added.
President Kiir highlighted that the salary increment would alleviate the hardships civil servants face due to the high cost of living.
“The cabinet believes this modest increment will help to relieve some hardships on the cost of living for civil servants, while we continue to improve on our resource envelope before further increments can be made,” Kiir assured citizens.
On Thursday, the economic advisor for the economic cluster, Dr. Abraham Maliet Mamer, advised the government to seize the opportunity presented by the East African Legislative Assembly for the East African Community partner states to ditch the dollar and use local currencies as legal tender.
Maliet advised the country to stop traders and travelers from crossing the border with dollars and increase the demand for South Sudanese pound, adding that the decision would give incentives to the partner states by removing the dollar barriers.
“We will be looking for pounds. There is no need for a dollar. If you take a dollar here and exchange it for Ugandan currency, it kills your own currency,” Dr. Maliet argued.
He said the delay in actualising this decision might have been because the government has not understood the policy. He argued that either the minister for finance does not want to implement it or the Ministry of East African Affairs has not tabled it in the cabinet meeting for deliberations.
In January, the governor of the Bank of South Sudan (BoSS), Johnny Ohisa, issued an order for the strict use of the Sound Sudanese Pound as the legal tender, but the order has not been implemented to date.
The pound has seemed to stabilize, yet it increases on a daily basis, from about SSP 43,000 against the dollar in April last year to the current SSP 100, 000 per $1000 which is more than doubling the previous exchange rate.
Meanwhile, last June, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) directed the EAC partner states to ditch dollars in transactions and instead make transactions in local currencies to save struggling economies.
Late last month, the Central Bank of South Sudan launched its strategic plan for 2023–2027, with the promise to stabilize exchange rates and inflation.
Utilities
“Your government is also exploring sourcing food supplies from the region that would be sold at subsidised prices through national companies with the requisite experience in management and distribution of such items.”- President Salva Kiir
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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