The Minister of Finance says it has canceled unpaid checks worth 12 billion Pounds, which some companies and individuals wanted from the public treasury.

Stephen Dhieu Dau said the unpaid checks were canceled because they were “more than the budget”.

“We’ve taken actions to cancel the unpaid checks which were not covered worth 12 billion pounds – more than the budget itself,” he told the media Wednesday.

He described the cancellation as an achievement his ministry has made since he took office last year.

Mr. Dhieu said the government’s priority is to implement financial reforms so that the economy will stabilize by next year.

He said this is one of the reforms to control unnecessary spending.

“We’ve also taken some major steps…address the economic crisis; we stopped the deficit financing from the Bank of South Sudan; we have issued orders restricting the medical referrals abroad for public servants and government officials,” he continued.

The government officials, the treasury spent 9 percent of 2015/2016 budget on the medical referrals abroad. This, he said, amounted to about 300 million Pounds.

The minister revealed that some donors he didn’t name have promised to cover the deficit of 2016/2017 budget.

The budget deficit this financial year is 40 percent, about $225 million.