South Sudan’s government to release $10M for floods

The government has directed that its Ministry of Finance must channel $10 million to mitigate the impacts of floods in the country.

The money which was approved recently has not yet been remitted.

Speaking to reporters after Friday’s cabinet meeting the Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth said that there is need to work quickly on the floods which have become a menace to communities.

This was after the defense Minister presented an assessment of the impact of floods on communities in Unity State after a visit.

According to Lueth, Angelina Teny described the situation as bad and requested the government to intervene.

“The issue of floods is very serious issue, the government decided that an extraordinary meeting will be held on Monday, whereby the ministry of environment will make a presentation to tell us how the situation in South Sudan is,” he said.

He said Uganda has warned that their dams are collapsing and they might open it anytime and the water will flow to South Sudan.

“We have directed the ministry of finance to pay 10 million that have been approved, it turned out its not made available,” Lueth said.

On Thursday the undersecretary in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Kot Bol Nyuar, claimed that the lack of funding had incapacitated the ministry and it could not fulfill its obligations.

He said the ministry of humanitarian affairs had signed $16.2 million in emergency humanitarian aid contracts with more than 20 companies, but they are yet to find a legal basis to send those contracts to the Ministry of Finance.

“The ministry once told us they have nothing, so this is a serious situation that we find ourselves in. When we go to our humanitarian community that our people are suffering, they say what you have on table,” he said.