The Commissioner General for the Investment Corporation in Jubek State says the body is unable to get US dollars to import food items.

Professor Paul Lado Bureng says the corporation has been importing different types of goods to supply the market over the past months.

Prof Lado says the corporation first imported goods at 130,000 US dollars some months ago, with the hard currency from the state Ministry of Finance.

He told Eye Radio that it is now facing a challenge of getting the US dollars to import more.

“Our challenge is that we cannot get the hard currency. It is difficult to get the hard currency. Even when they said that the official rate is 110 it is not there,” Prof. Bureng said, referring the official exchange rate of 110 pounds against $1. “It is only theoretical.”

He said the corporation has money it generated from “our few rental charges,” and which it now wants to “convert so that it can serve our people.”

“Now, we have the local currency and we don’t know what to do with it, because if we exchange it now with the rate which is going on in the parallel market, which is between 146 to 150 pounds [against $1], that money will come to meaningless amount,” he said, without stating the amount in local currency.

Professor Bureng has urged the national government and the Agricultural Bank to support the corporation in importing food items.