Hon. Benjamin Ayali Koyongwa, Undersecretary, Ministry of Finance and Planning, Speaking at the 2025–2026 Budget Public Hearing, National Parliament on Thursday, February, 12, 2026 - credit: TRC/Malual Atem

JUBA, South Sudan (Eye Radio) – The Ministry of Finance and Planning reports a sharp decline in international donor funding, necessitating a strategic shift toward domestic resource mobilization to sustain essential services.

Addressing a packed hall of lawmakers, civil society leaders, and state representatives during the public hearing for the 2025–2026 Draft Budget and Finance Bill, the Undersecretary of Finance, Hon. Benjamin Ayali Koyongwa, issued a candid assessment of the nation’s fiscal reality.

For years, South Sudan has relied heavily on external partners to bridge the gap in public service funding. However, Hon. Koyongwa revealed that those sources are drying up, creating an urgent need for the country to rely on its own domestic revenue.

“The funding that we used to get from partners is not coming, and that calls for us to look inwardly,” Hon. Koyongwa stated. “What can we do with the mega resources we have, without compromising the basic service delivery for our people?”

The Undersecretary framed the current economic climate not just as a crisis, but as a turning point that demands better management of the “mega resources”—primarily oil and non-oil taxes—that South Sudan already possesses.

Hon. Koyongwa emphasized that while the government navigates these financial hurdles, the basic needs of South Sudanese citizens cannot be “put on hold.” He used the health and education sectors as a moral compass for the budget deliberations, urging the Finance Committee and stakeholders to prioritize human life over bureaucracy.

“I want to give a practical example,” he told the gallery. “Health service needs to be delivered. People get sick; it’s not going to wait. Our learners have to be in classrooms; it’s not going to wait. Therefore, it’s important for us to work together to ensure that whatever little we have is allocated for these key sectors.”

The public hearing arrived at a tense moment. With the 2025/26 draft budget facing a projected deficit of 1.5 trillion SSP, the Ministry’s call to “work together” is seen as an effort to build consensus on potentially painful spending cuts in non-essential areas to keep hospitals and schools running.

Stakeholders from the ten states and three administrative areas raised concerns during the session about how this “inward-looking” approach will affect the delivery of services in remote regions, where the lack of partner funding is felt most acutely.

As the National Parliament prepares to move the Finance Bill to its next reading, the message from the Ministry of Finance remains clear: South Sudan must find a way to fund its own survival, ensuring that the most vulnerable citizens are protected even as the “mega resources” of the state are stretched thinner than ever before.