Abraham Maliet Mamer, an advisor to Vice President Wani Igga speaks on Eye Radio's Sundown Show. Nov. 12, 2024. (Photo: Awan Moses).

The formulation of South Sudan’s annual national budgets has resulted in recurrent and massive deficits that force the country to seek loans while the financial estimate does not reflect the citizens’ aspirations, an economist said.

Abraham Maliet Mamer – explaining his argument on Eye Radio’s Sundown Show on Tuesday – said the 4.2-trillion-pound budget passed on November 11 has fallen short by SSP1.9 trillion of the projected oil and non-oil revenues.

The deficit is further projected to account for 63 percent of the total budget if a proposed supplementary budget of SSP695 billion is passed later in the year, amid fears that the budget arrears could land the country into hyperinflation.

The national parliament said the government can count on the anticipated resumption of Dar blend oil as well as loans and grants from the international community to cover the deficit.

Mr. Maliet, Advisor in the Office of Vice President for Economic Cluster, said it is not the first time that the country passes a budget with such a hefty deficit and blames it on the way budgets are structured.

According to him, the manner in which budgets are formulated doesn’t give the citizens control of its implementation.

“It is recurring simply because the way we structured our budget is somehow like it is filling somebody somewhere. They come up with a ceiling, and that ceiling is dropped to spending agencies to be able to develop programs so that such ceilings is implemented,” he told Eye Radio’s Sundown program.

“It does not give total control of the citizen of their own budget, but as you have seen in this budget and the other budgets, they’ve always been there, and it has now become a syndrome. We are having this.”

He suggests that budget-making process must adopt a bottom approach for it to be realistic budget and based on the citizen’s aspirations.

“So, for us to get out of this, we have to go back to the ABC of how to develop budget. Budget must be realistic, budget must be based on citizen aspiration, and budget must be bottom-up.”