Leadership wrangles cripple budgeting process in Western Equatoria

The dispute between Governor Alfred Futuyo and his deputy has paralysed the bid to approve the budget for fiscal year – 2021/2022, the Western Equatoria State Minister of Finance said.

Speaking exclusively to The City Review from Yambio, William Adriano, the State Minister of Finance, also attributed the failure to the “disagreement” between the governor and his deputy.

He said they have only been getting transfers from the national ministry of finance, to pay the salaries of civil servants.

However, Adriano distanced himself from the failure to adopt the state budget for 2021/2022 and blamed the continuous conflict between the governor and his deputy.

The minister was summoned on Monday by the state assembly to answer questions regarding the monthly cash flow from the national ministry of finance, the status of the state’s local tax collection, and the remuneration of the state assembly members.

“When I submitted all the ceiling to the 10 counties, including the spending agencies to go and sit down with their respective institutions to come up with their budget, some of the counties had not yet brought their budgets, especially Nagero and Tombura, up to now due to the insecurity,’’ the minister said.

“Now we have come to realise that we need to pass the budget so that things can work,” Adriano stressed, adding he could not address the Council of Ministers at the time.

Since its establishment, the Western Equatoria State government has not passed a budget, and according to Adriano, the council of ministers has not been conducting meetings.

However, he disclosed that the state’s local taxes have been used by the government to pay for its operating costs.

He said since the budget has not been passed, the state executive and assembly members have not been receiving their emolument.

The minister said the allowances paid to the constitutional post holders were all from the meagre state resources to make ends meet.

“We have not passed the budget since we came to the office. We have been working on the old budget. When the 32 states were dissolved and the only people who remained in the offices were the civil servants headed by the secretary-general, so the executive and the assembly had their emoluments actually frozen because they were relieved.”

“When people were appointed, the first thing that we could have done was to pass our budget, and then we would be able to capitalise on it.” So after failing to do this, now this is where we have a consequence of failing to pass our budget. “

The 2021/2022 fiscal year budget is due to elapse next month and Adriano said,”The best way for us to move forward is to deliberate on our budget and pass it.’’

‘‘If we don’t pass it, we will have problems with the budget of 2022/2023 because the proposed budget for 2021/2022 will lay the foundation for the budget of 2022/2023.”

He noted that most of the state’s development projects have stopped because the state does not receive national government transfers except for transfers for civil servants’ salaries.