South Sudan’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Stephen Dhieu Dau on Wednesday appealed to the donor community to extend financial support exceeding $ 200 million to avert economic crisis and bridge budget deficit.

This comes during his meeting with representatives of donor countries at the finance ministry in Juba on Wednesday evening.

In press a statement after the meeting, Minister Dhieu said the exchange rate of the South Sudanese pound on the parallel continued to depreciate against the US dollar, causing rising costs of living in the country.

“I need support from the donors to come and provide even technical support to the ministry of finance for us to undertake the reform agenda like the establishment of the National Revenue Authority to support the Bank of South Sudan,” said Dhieu.

“I have also requested them to support us in the budget deficit. Prices have increased and the cost of living is now unaffordable for the majority of the people in the country,” he added.

For his part, Johannes Lehne, the German Ambassador in South Sudan and preprenetaitve of the donor community, said that the donor countries would continue to support the ministry of finance in order to implement the reform agenda stipulated in chapter 4 of the peace agreement.

He pointed out that the issue of transparency is very important to the donor community as Germany alone provides one billion US dollars every year for humanitarian aid.

“Transparent in the spending is very important for us as we provide support of over one billion dollars to South Sudan every year especially in the humanitarian field, but also development aid and construction as most areas of the country have been destroyed by war,” said Lehne.

File photo: Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau/Radio Tamazuj