EDITORIAL
When the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank was announcing the possible cash shortage in the national reserve, the representatives from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were in attendance.
Expectations were high among reporters who covered the press conference, they wanted to hear from the representatives from the Bretton Woods institutions but astonishingly that did not happen regardless of an explicit financial appeal made by the bank’s officials.
Something happened a day after their awkward silence; the governor of the Central Bank retracted the soundbite of cash scarcity while maintaining that the national reserve needs financial assistance from the aforementioned institutions.
The governor’s remarks probably contributed to IMF and the World Bank reservations on whether to extend a credit line to the bank shifting statements between financial bankruptcy in real terms, and financial sufficiency of the bank in public relations terms.
Now, think about this. When the Central Bank governor attempted to conceal and reverse the statement on liquidity crunch, he was thrown under the bus by President Salva Kiir, who is more informed about the current economic landscape in the country than the governor.
As all these happen, the World Bank, the most powerful financial institutions in the world remained silent despite multiple email inquiries by The City Review asking for a possibility of the bank granting assistance to the government of South Sudan.
At this stage, one thing is clear; the country is a financial crisis, we do not need to emphasize the negative impact brought by the coronavirus on the country’s economy. The global price of oil, which is the country’s major export plummeted to an unbelievable proportion.
This is why the President set up a committee and tasked its members to discover strategies that would put back the country’s economy to a better path. However, for this committee, led by the Vice President of the Economic Cluster Dr. James Wani Igga to be effective, its composition should be a blend of few politicians and more economic technocrats who understand how and where to drive the country in time of a dire cash crisis.
Nearly two weeks ago, the Ministry of Agriculture went lobbying for $250million from the African Export-Import (AFREXIM) Bank for what it says was an “emergency loan” required to tame the negative impact of COVID-19 on the agricultural sector and support food security.
Surely, South Sudan has arrived at a point where agriculture is the only better option available since other economic recovery strategies like purchase and sale of gold proved ineffective. Unfortunately, there is no budget to save the sector and it is still on probability other than the possibility that AFREXIM Bank will grant the much-needed loan.
But for a country which has always relied on monetary handouts from regional and international friends, chances are high South Sudan will get the assistance it needs. But without economic experts to allocate the expected funds to critical sectors of the economy, the funds will be unprecedentedly misappropriated and the government will have to go lobbying for more.