dollars

Central Equatoria State Governor, Clement Wani Konga, says his government bought up to 2.5 million US dollars from the black market last month.

He said the money should have been exchanged at the Central Bank using the official bank rate.

The black market rate is higher than that of the Central Bank.

Governor Konga said the state government requested the hard currency for importing roads construction equipment, but they were not given.

He was speaking during the opening of the fifth session of the state Legislative assembly yesterday.

“It’s unfortunate that all the money that we used, we have to exchange it from the black market instead of the Central Bank,” he told the state MPs.

“And it is the duty of the Central Bank to support the states to purchase equipment so that they could carry out any maintenance work on the roads.”

The machines will help in the construction of feeder roads in CES.

The black market is considered illegal by the government, but people resort to it when they cannot get the hard currency from the Central Bank, commercial banks and foreign exchange bureaus.