The National Legislative Assembly is discussing a motion to ban purchase of Toyota V8 SUVs by all government institutions.

MPs say this would save money for development projects. They say one V8 car costs about 125,000 pounds.

The lawmakers say the assembly alone buys 36 V8 cars every new term, which costs more than 16 million pounds.

“The dealers of these vehicles convince us that the V8s are better vehicles, but these vehicles are very expensive especially at this time when we need every penny to be utilized,” said Tulio Odongi, government chief Whip.

“When we went to liberation, we went not to liberate our bad habits and accumulate resources, including vehicles but the people want health services, they want education, and they want the entire road so that they can bring their own produce into this town.

“Why can we put serious austerity measures in order to utilize the little funds we are getting?”

The parliament said that South Sudan could be largest importer of V8 vehicles in the region.