The Finance Ministry in South Sudan has appealed to the donor community and international financial institutions to extend more financial support to avert economic disaster, admitting that the country is in a 'difficult' economic situation.

Finance Minister-designate David Deng Athorbei told journalists on Thursday that he recently convened a meeting with foreign diplomats, financial institutions and representatives of donor countries, saying that the government “needs their support and understanding.”

“We are a new country, very young country with a lot of challenges. Our priority areas were competitively almost the same at independence but when this war came, it reversed everything and took us back to square one,” said Athorbei.

“Our economy is now in difficult moment and for this reason we appeal to our friends in the region and around the world to extend us hands of friendship and cooperation. We need their support and understanding,” he said.

According to Athorbei, the donor community should not punish the people of South Sudan with imposition of sanctions instead they should help provide support to scale up the ailing public and private sectors, which he said need fresh capital.

“My meeting with the development partners last week went well. It has gone on very well. I explained to them the current position of our economy and what the government is doing.”

Athorbei did not outline exactly how the government plans to cover its massive fiscal deficit except to say that it still negotiating for a $500 million loan from Qatar.

This would cover only part of the deficit.

He said that a parliamentary committee was closely following the negotiations between the government and the multilateral donors. Athorbei expressed hope that negotiations to get 500 million dollars from the Qataris will be successful, saying securing the loan from Qatar will clear the way for re-engagement with other multilateral donors since parliament is involved.

'Payments suspended'

For his part, the secretary-general of an alliance of South Sudanese opposition parties Martin Aligo Abe criticized the government for 'reckless' economic policies, pointing out that it is presently failing to meet payment obligations to suppliers.

“The economic situation now has reached an alarming state. The contractors are complaining that the government has deferred payments for goods and services. All the payments for arrears have been suspended and the government has embarked on reckless borrowing, which indicates that the economy is not in a good shape and this should be the cause of concern to our people now,” said Abe.

He further accused the parliament of having forfeited its oversight functions to properly scrutinize the loans acquired by the government since independence and since the crisis.

“Our people are expecting the parliament to exercise its role properly. They should not just approve the loans taken to them by the government. They need to know the purpose of these loans, their terms, including how long and where the government will get the resources to pay back these loans. There should be transparency,” he emphasized.

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