Dr. Baak Barnaba Chol, the new Minister of Finance and Planning speaks in Juba. (Photo: Obaj Okuj)

The newly appointed Minister of Finance and Planning said he is determined to fix currency exchange rates and introduce policies crucial to economic recovery and reform in the country.

Dr. Bak Barnaba Bak, who was appointed on August 3, says his top priority is introducing economic reforms aimed at reducing the high inflation and strengthening the South Sudanese pound.

Speaking during his welcoming ceremony on Monday, Dr. Baak said he would work to review the economic system in order to adjust the salaries of civil servants.

Minister Baak outlined his plans to introduce an economic emergency intervention within the Ministry of Finance and Planning.

“In few weeks or even months depending on the policies of the Ministry, I am going to introduce what I have called economic emergency intervention plan, this is a policy intended to fix the foreign exchange market by providing essential goods to combat the skyrocketing market prices,” said the minister.

He also said he will accelerate the implementation of the public financial management reforms and enhance government’s capacity to procure food items for disaster-affected areas.

He further voiced commitment to implementing effective reforms that will bring stability and prosperity to South Sudan’s economy.

“We will work together with our colleagues in the economic cluster and the Central Bank because part of this policy follows under the monitoring policy to enhance the modalities of the implementation.”

– Luxury cars – 

Minister Baak further said he intends to discourage the purchase of luxury vehicles such as V8 and V6 models by levying heavy taxation on their imports.

According to him, this move will help divert funds towards more pressing economic priorities, ensuring that resources are channeled towards the recovery and growth of the nation.

“We are also going to discourage people from buying luxury cars V8 and V6. I just got this V8 ready, if I was left alone, I would buy a Hardtop,” he said referring to a V8 provided to him by the ministry.

“These expensive commodities are very costly to our economy. V8 is good and nice but is very expensive to our budget and that’s why, together with the Commissioner, we are going to increase tariff on luxury goods and commodities because we provide food for those who are hungry but not more V8 or V6 to those who to be comfortable.”

In May 2015, South Sudan’s parliament raised a motion to prohibit the purchase of V8 vehicles by public institutions.

Lawmaker Zakaria Matur Makuer from Lakes State said a lot of public funds are being spent by government institutions every time there is a reshuffle.

Matur said South Sudan is the number one importer of Toyota Land Cruiser V8 vehicles in the region, if not in the world. He said that V8 vehicles are very expensive to buy, run, and maintain.

Meanwhile, Minister Baak further said he plans to introduce a digitalized payment system to regulate transactions made by individuals seeking to purchase goods from overseas.

This measure aims to enhance transparency and accountability in cross-border transactions.

“Another thing is digitalized our payment system if you are going to buy products from Turkey, Chine and from India we will facilitate your payment my brother or my sister.”

“You don’t need to carry cash in places, the issues of take cash from Central Bank has to be stopped its shame to see people travelling with such cash in planes is not good let’s be modernized.”

Minister Baak said he will not only address immediate economic concerns but also long-term sustainability and responsible financial practices.

On this he said will deal with the issues of financial claims, saying I burden to the economic growth.

“Another thing these financial claims, you know even before I was appointed people were coming to my offices at University of Juba and Juba Market. People are saying if I appointed as minister of finance this my claim help me.”

“You know these claims need a smart why to deal with it, because indeed it’s a burden to our economic growth. Of course, there are genuine claims but there are ingenuine claims, so we need to work together to verify and validate and thoroughly investigate all the finance claims, so that we can budget for the genuine claims.”