The Minister of Finance and Planning on Wednesday tabled SSP 287 billion budget for the fiscal year 2021/2022 to the national legislature.

Agak Achuil Lual also presented two drafts on the appropriation and financial bills to the national annual budget.

The drafts were to address what the minister described as the context of conflict-induced fragility, climate change, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to minister Achuil, the budget aims at stimulating economic recovery.

This, he said, would also help maintain price stability and facilitate private sector participation in the economy.

Minister Agak added that the economic and social policies for the budget are among others, to reduce inflation from 22.8 in the fiscal year 2020/2021 to 16.3 percent.

However, he stressed that diversification of the economy through agriculture would act as the engine to enhance inclusive growth and sustainable livelihoods for the poor and vulnerable households.

The annual budget is projected from expected oil and non-oil revenues including grants from other countries.

“The government proposes to spend a total of SSP 287.0 billion which represent 12.8% of the GDP estimated at SSP 2.241.0 trillion. Of this amount, SSP 169.3 billion or 7.6% will be financed by domestic revenues while SSP 77.4 billion which represent 3.5% will be through credit (i.e. concessional loans) from our cooperating partners. The balance of SSP 40.3 billion, which represent 1.8% is the financing gap in the budget which we propose to finance through commercial borrowing,” the Minister of Finance and Planning said.

The 287-billion budget was first unveiled to the council of ministers in July last year.

The country’s financial year begins in July each year.

But South Sudan has been operating under the 2019/2020 supplementary budget with unclear accountability.

Rebecca Joshua, the Chief Whip of the ruling SPLM party in the parliament said: “The budget has been tabled, this is half-year of the budget and you know very well that there will be not very much to be done because the year has passed.”

She called on the lawmakers to speed up the deliberations on the budget and pass it as soon as possible.

This according to her, would help address the irregular payment of salaries of civil servants and the organized forces.

“I want to encourage the members to do their work diligently, expeditiously, and perfectly well. Not only that as parliament, but the legislature will also keep in mind that we are concerned about the civil servants and the organized forces and therefore, we move while thinking and having in mind, the civil servants and organized forces are waiting for us,” she echoed public concerns.

Hon. Joshua added that “If we very quickly finish this work diligently, there will have the opportunity to look at these two categories.”

The speaker of the new unity parliament, Jemma Nunu Kumba received the 2021/2022 draft budget from the Finance Minister.

For her part, she directed all relevant committees in the august house, especially that of finance and economy to expedite the process.

Nunu said the committees should report to the legislature within 21 days, in accordance with the conduct of business regulation 2013, as amended 2021.

“The committees will immediately embark on their work and also the bills will be discussed by the clusters. So the committee for finance and economy will take a lead to organize the clusters. All the committees will be involved in this exercise through the clusters, ” she said.

In the last financial year, the council passed a budget of 205 billion pounds.

By law, the budget is supposed to be submitted to the national legislature by no later than the 15th of May of each financial year, but this has not been happening for the last two years.