Central Bank to maintain restrictive monetary policy to stabilize currency

By Simon Deng

The Governor of the Bank of South Sudan James Alic Garang said that they the apex bank will maintain the restrictive monetary policy to help stabilize the battered South Sudanese Pound against the U.S. dollar.

“From the perspective of the Bank of South Sudan, we are just a microcosm of the government and our policy are straight forward, we will continue to maintain restrictive monetary policies,”  Garang  said during a joint press conference held with the minister of information Michael Makuei Lueth on Tuesday in Juba.

 “We will continue to communicate our polices to the public and we will continue to work on modernizing the national payment system, we are really very much advanced in that stage,” he added.

His remarks came in the aftermath of the South Sudanese Pounds depreciating to it’s lowest point against the dollar since independence in 2011.

The SSP is currently exchanging with the dollar at 1,500 compared to the previous 1,200 in December last year.

Garang urged the public to engage in productive sectors such as agriculture, adding that oil alone will not take this country forward.

He revealed that the central bank is mobilizing reserves, adding also that it is registering street money changers in effort to control market prices.   

“We are reorganizing the informal market, the government has made sure that no one should stand on the street and sell (currency), and now we are moving to a phase where we are telling them to register and find shops to be able to sell,” he said.

“In April and going forward it is going to be illegal in this country for anyone to be found selling anywhere whether in their house, or in shops especially if they have not registered, so these are some of the ways in which we can legally control prices in a very positive way,” Garang disclosed.