South Sudan’s National Legislative Assembly on Monday summoned the Central Bank governor and the minister of finance to appear on Wednesday before them to answer questions on the country’s biting economic situation.
Oliver Mori Benjamin, the chairperson of the parliament’s information committee, said finance minister David Deng Athorbei or his representative will be present on Wednesday, though the minister was in India attending the Indo-Africa meeting.
“There are going to be a lot of queries from the honorable members which can only be clarified by the two institutions, that is to say the ministry of finance and then the governor of Bank of South Sudan,” Mori said.
Separately, Mori said the parliament’s finance committee will on Wednesday present on an urgent motion to design a strategy for improving the economy.
The motion, proposed Monday by Pascal Bandindi the chairman of the agriculture and land commitee, holds for review current fiscal and monetary politics regarding the realignment of the South Sudanese Pound to the USD, by bounding the currency’s official value between 18.5 and 10.0 SSP to the dollar. Currently the SSP trades at around 36 to the dollar.
While Bandidi proposed that the parliament create an ad-hoc committee on the matters, most members agreed it should go straight to the finance committee, Mori said.
“The parliament decided to refer this urgent motion by the eight economic cluster committee to the committee of finance and economy so that it presents it to the national legislative assembly after tomorrow, that is on Wednesday the 16 of March 2016 for more input from the members to find a way forward in addressing the economical crisis in the country,” Mori said Monday.
Mori said the motion would help tackle the dollar crisis, dollar auctioning, water and importing of commodities by businesspeople. He cautioned that despite the document being referred to the committee of finance it is not yet the final decision of the house to resolve South Sudan’s economic woes.
Mori noted also that the parliament has not yet received its supplementary budget, part of measures taken to improve the economic situation.
File photo: David Deng Athorbei