South Sudan Lack of 2020/2021 Budget is a Major Economic Blunder
4 min read
Malith Alier Deng, South Sudanese Australian Political Analyst and Cultural Critics
By Malith Alier, Kalgoorlie, Australia
Friday, March 26, 2021 (PW) — This author like other concerned isn’t aware whether out there, the SPLM led government, has offered cogent reasons and explanation to the South Sudanese people why the financial year 2020/2021 has become exception in the process of budgeting.
The lack of budget for the above period is a new low for the SPLM led government in its long and unpredictable reign. The country is almost to the end of the financial period – only three months to the next financial period. One would imagine what was happening over the last nine months, July 2020 to March 2021?
Everyone in South Sudan is aware that salaries, which form a larger percentage of budgetary spending, are “frozen” for the past nine months of the financial year under discussion. We may presume that it is the office of the president and the national security which are being funded but this is only a speculation.
The last budget, 2019/2020 in figures, stood at SSP 208bn about 1.6m US Dollars. One would imagine the size of 2020/2021 would have been greater considering other factors such as hyperinflation or Consumer Price Index, CPI.
Governments all over the world recognized the indispensable importance budgeting plays in the life of the economy and subsequently a nation. The budget is a tool for effective planning without which the country is nothing more than a radarless vesselfloating perilously on high seas.
Not preparing a budget this financial year, South Sudan has not only defied its own laws but also the laws of East African trading bloc or Community, EAC. All East African constituent states: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi with the exception of the newest state being South Sudan prepared and passed their budgets in June 2020 in accordance to their national obligation and that of EAC.
What does this say about South Sudan? South Sudan was about to be suspended last financial period for failing to remit its share of budget for three consecutive years, about 8 million Dollars per year to EAC. This was at a time when there was a budget to guide the country through. What if there is no budgetas is presently the case?
The South Sudan budget process has never been a smooth one. Sometimes the budget was prepared three or more months into the financial period in focus. From Ministry of Finance and Planning to council of ministers and all the way to parliament, not many were keen about detailed budgeting and implementation process.
Budget credibility was another issue altogether. Budget credibility describes how well any government adheres to meet the targets set out in the budget. A budget, no matter how well it’s laid out,will have no credibility if the revenues forecast in it cannot be realized.
This is the same if the expenditure was too wide or too short. In previous budgets, some government institutions also known as spending agencies overspend by upto 300% whileothers spent less than 50% of allocated funds.
A disturbing report from the Auditor General’s Office, 2021, (refer to Eyeradio.org) shows that the 2% and 3% meant for oil producing states in Unity and Upper Nile had never been remitted to those states since 2014. The states’ share of oil moneywillfully wasted through corruption was 85 million or more.
This amount should have been paid directly to producing states and communities according to Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2013. Instead, the Ministry of Finance and Planning in collaboration with Central Bank resorted to illegally allocating this revenue to its powerful allies in defiance of the Act.
This meagre percentage of oil revenue was meant to compensate those who will suffer the consequences of oil exploration and extraction but alas, the subversive elements, afraid of nothing, unleashed their insatiable appetite for resources on what they saw as a low hanging fruit!
A failed state is a state that is at war with itself. It is a state that does not implement it laws and policies. It is a state that does not prepare a budget!
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