South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"

By Awan Achiek
The Central Equatoria State Council of Ministers on Thursday passed the 2024/25 fiscal budget estimated at 45 billion South Sudan Pounds.
Gerald Francis, the State Minister Peace Building who doubled as Acting Minister of Information, said the proposed budget was tabled by Viana Kakuli, Minister of Finance and Investment during the extra-ordinary cabinet meeting in Juba, chaired Augustino Jadalla Wani the Governor Central Equatoria State.
“We have passed the total resource envelope of the State which is 45, 122, 749,71 pounds. This is our resource envelope for this year 2024/2025,” Francis told journalists after the meeting.
Francis said that the budget has prioritized spending on education, health agriculture and animal resources and infrastructure such as roads.
“And of course, at the top is the Ministry of Education, because now education is almost becoming the top agenda of our country. So for us as a State we have to replicate what our national government is doing,” he said
Francis added that education is a critical catalyst for realizing all the other budget priorities they have set in this year’s budget.
He said that the budget will also support digitalization of services in the State.
“One of our agenda is to move from analog to the digital world. The Ministry of Information is critical because we will be having mobile TVs,” Francis said.
He said that the State Ministry of Gender and Social Welfare has been allocated enough money to be able to resolve the recurring issue of street children.
“You know we have a number of orphans in our State here, and they are all under that ministry. So the council thought wisely that it’s good to consider this ministry and their budget to be at least added so that they will be able to implement projects that have to do with the lives of orphans and their social welfare,” Francis said.