S.Sudan's Finance Minister Dr. Bak and Egyptian Ambassador Mostafa

The Minister of Finance and Planning is set to sign a memorandum of understanding with his Egyptian counterpart on capacity building, tax and non-oil revenue collections and management.

South Sudan’s Ministers Dr Bak Barnaba Bak and Egypt’s Ambassador Mohammed Almoatez revealed this following a meeting on Thursday.

It’s not clear when the two Finance Ministries will ink the cooperation agreement, but Minister Dr Barnaba says this will take place as soon as he goes.

“We will sign it when I go to Egypt. His Excellence as the Minister of Finance was here. He came to attend the National Economic Conference. We were so glad he was the only national minister of a neighboring country who came.

“We agreed during the short period of his office visit to sign a memorandum on a number of issues in addition to tax, non-oil revenue collection, and management.

“There were also agreements on technical and capacity building in the Ministry of Finance and several areas that are now outstanding. And we will go to Egypt very soon to sign the cooperation.”

Egyptian Ambassador to South Sudan Moatez Mostafa accompanied by diplomatic attaché/ Elsaid Ezzat, a member of the embassy, said Thursday’s meeting was to follow up on bilateral cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

The other, he says, is to prepare for the trip of South Sudan Finance Minister Barnaba for the signing of the MoU as soon as possible.

According to him, the cooperation deal will be on taxation and the other one on how to cooperate in capacity building of South Sudan finance institution.

” We will start capacity building with the Ministry of Finance and Planning here in South Sudan as we are helping and supporting all the ministries in South Sudan.

“As His Excellency mentioned we are preparing his visit as soon as possible to Egypt to sign a memo on taxation and the other one on how to cooperate in the two ministries in Egypt and here in South Sudan,” he said.

Ambassador Mostfa said Egypt with South Sudan Ministry of Finance has been for a long period.

The expected deal follows the participation of Egyptian Finance Minister Mohammed Maait in the recently concluded South Sudan 1^st Economic Conference last week.