South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Simon Deng
The Inspector General of Police Gen. Atem Marol Biar Kuek on Wednesday vowed to intensify the ongoing crackdown on unregistered local currency traders in Juba, following the depreciation of the South Sudan Pound against the U.S dollar.
“My message today, the dollar went up again, we have the same mandate, and we have to capture people selling the dollar. We are going to continue with the crackdown, and we are going to investigate those selling dollars in the black market,” said Biar during press conference held in Juba.
This comes in the wake of James Alic Garang, Governor of the Bank of South Sudan, announcing the end of the 45-day grace period in early April, provided by the banking industry regulator to all informal currency traders to obtain licenses for their operations.
The central bank ordered in November 2023, all informal currency traders to start to obtain licenses at the cost of 50 U.S. dollars and also deposit capital amounting to 1,000 dollars in order to maintain operation.
The police crackdown is targeting small traders who trade foreign currency in the open along busy streets and markets, a practice that has endured since South Sudan won independence from neighboring Sudan in 2011.
“We have to go with the interest of the public, we will stop the operation when the dollar comes down, I am asking the people selling dollars in the black market to come down instead of us interfering with them,” said Biar.
Biar cited the recent police operation against criminal gangs, as one of the successful operations achieved by the police force under his leadership.
He commended the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for assisting the police by providing sleeping materials, water, schooling and counseling services to gang members in different centers.
Biar revealed that the sole responsibility of police is to maintain internal security, adding that they are working to ensure that peace is maintained across the country.
“The issue of those looting people’s property, we have already got the list and we have got information about people facilitating these people (criminals), we will deal with them, we want people to live in peace,” he said.
Criminal cases of burglary and theft have been on the rise recently, with security experts blaming the situation on the worsening economy.
