South Sudan outlines budget for “uncertain times”
JUBA (Reuters) – South Sudan’s finance ministry presented a 2012/13 budget that aims to slash state spending, boost tax revenues and raise loans to make up for the loss of almost all state revenues with the country’s shutdown of oil production in January. The proposed budget put annual spending at 6.4 billion South Sudanese pounds – roughly $1.3 billion at recent black market rates – of which about 2.9 billion pounds would go to salaries. Landlocked South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan a year ago, dependent on oil for about 98 percent of its state revenues, but halted output in January in a row with Khartoum over how much it should pay to export via pipelines in Sudan.
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