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Northern Bahr el Ghazal governor assented into law the state’s 2023-2024 Fiscal Year Budget and Appropriation Act on Wednesday, nine months after the national budget was signed into law by the president.

Tong Akeen Ngor consented to the 13-billion-pound budget after it was presented to him by the state parliament speaker, Honorable Achol William Amoi, only one month before the tabling of the next budget.

“The Fiscal year 2023/2024 State Budget is SSP 13,697,089,800, which is based on personnel, operating and capital costs,” a statement from the office of the governor read.

It was not immediately clear when the state’s legislature passed the budget.

In August 2023, President Salva Kiir signed the 2023-2024 Fiscal Year Budget of 2.1 trillion pounds into law, two days after it was contentiously passed in parliament.

The fiscal year budget was passed with a 400 percent increment in salaries and wages for civil servants, the Army, and other organized forces.

In February 2024, the national cabinet also passed a minimum supplementary budget of about 107 billion South Sudanese pounds, which is short of the 713 billion requested to support electoral preparedness.

However, challenges in exporting the country’s chief crude oil through war-torn Sudan has left the government struggling to fund the budget, leading to failure to pay civil servants for many months.

Former Finance Minister Dr. Bak Barnaba Chol said, during a meeting with finance ministers of the states and administrative areas in February, that the government does not have enough resources to sustain the 400% salary adjustment approved in the 2023/2024 budget.