South Sudan’s Central Bank has refuted rumors that it will produce a new domination of currency after soaring inflation.
The Central Bank’s Governor Kornelio Koriom Mayik said in a news conference on Friday that the bank doesn’t want new currency denominations, but wants to get rid of old notes.
“There are new notes that are coming into circulation because notes circulate, they get old and they become unfit and need to be replaced”, he said. “So the same money is coming in with the same numbers because there is a replacement and the replacement is not getting rid, or putting away the old ones.”
Recently, South Sudan has entered hyperinflation with the value of its currency decreasing by more than 800 percent in the past year. Mayik also said a decision to change the currency denominations would have to be approved by the country’s council of ministers.
“Tomorrow we are receiving a big consignment coming by air and the other Saturday we are receiving another big one and by that time any shortage resulted in the market will be over,” the governor said.
He blamed the country’s financial woes on war and the over-reliance on oil.
“We are consumers,” Mayik said. “Our production is less than our consumption. So there is always a gap between what we produced and what we consumed. Our expenditure is more that the revenue”, he added.