In the most recent dramatic cabinet reshuffle in the East African nation of South Sudan, President Salva Kiir dismissed Finance Minister Dier Tong Ngor. A spokesperson for Kiir connected the decision to the recent decline in the value of the South Sudanese pound.
“You have seen what’s happening in the market, I mean how the US dollar is appreciating against the South Sudanese pound,” the spokesperson said when asked why Ngor had been removed after about a year in his post.
The decision to remove Ngor was not explained in the initial announcement. According to the spokesperson, Bak Barnaba Chol, an economics graduate and close political supporter of Kiir, would take over as finance minister. She added that Kiir frequently reshuffles his government as he sees fit.
In the last two months, South Sudan’s currency has lost around a third of its value versus the US dollar. According to analysts, this decline can be attributed to Kiir’s inability to strictly uphold a 2018 peace pact as well as economic instability brought on by inter-communal conflict.
It is pertinent to mention that President Kiir has now fired four finance ministers since 2020.
Less than a week after removing the interior and defense ministries in contravention of the conditions of the peace deal with the opposition, Putin fired the foreign minister in March without providing any justification.
The country’s economy depends heavily on the sale of crude oil, but it was devastated by a civil war that broke out between 2013 to 2018, just after it gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
The move to fire Ngor, according to expert Boboya James of the Institute of Social Policy and Research in Juba, is unlikely to address the nation’s economic problems.
“Whether President Kiir will fire 1,000 ministers of finance or governors of banks, so long as there is no economic reform, so long as the small revenue coming from oil is not boosting agriculture and other productive sectors … there will never be an improvement in the economy,” he said.
