By Tapeng Michael Ohure
A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in Juba on Friday to follow up on how the government of South Sudan used over $200 million grants meant to help stabilize the economy of the East African country.
The IMF provided the grants under the “Rapid Credit Facility” to South Sudan within the last 15 months.
IMF Mission Chief for South Sudan, Mr. Nikop Hobdari said the international financial institution is encouraged by the achievements made by the Central Bank of South Sudan in stabilizing the economy.”We are encouraged by the economic reforms in South Sudan since we engaged more closely with South Sudan in about one year and half earlier. Extended reforms have been introduced since March last year, and they have brought stability in the markets and they have reduced prices of the last twelve months,” IMF Mission Chief for South Sudan, Nikop Hobdari said.
“We will discuss with the minister and the Governor of Bank of South Sudan on how to sustain those gains and how the stability can be maintained,” The IMF Chief adds:
The Governor of the Bank of South Sudan, Moses Makur Deng says his institution will maintain the necessary economic reforms.
“What is important is how to continue with these reforms and maintain the stability that has been achieved by the Central Bank since March last year. What is important is to sustain the intervention of the bank in the foreign exchange markets to stabilize the exchange rate and therefore value of the South Sudanese Pounds, and that is the main target now.” Said.Makur.
“We will watch out for any eventual challenges and we will be in close collaboration with the IMF team in Washington and the IMF team here in Juba.” Added Makur
