South Sudan to pay 8 mln USD to regional bloc despite economic crunch

South Sudan, despite facing an economic crunch due to more than two years of civil conflict, will pay eight million U.S. dollars as annual contribution fee to the regional trade bloc East African Community (EAC), an official said on Tuesday.

Presidential Economic Advisor, Aggrey Tisa Sabuni, told Xinhua in Juba that South Sudan was obliged to contribute its financial share of eight million dollars to the 47 million dollar operation budget of the EAC secretariat with other member countries doing the same.

South Sudan, which is just emerging from the more than two years of devastating civil conflict and currently in economic turmoil, has seen its oil revenues plummet from 350,000 barrels a day to less than 160,000 bpd. Oil revenues constitute around 98 percent of the South Sudanese government's budget.

This has led to macro-economic instability leading to nearly 300 percent inflation, which has left the South Sudan Pound exchanging with the U.S. dollar as high as 50 in July from 32 in April.

The pledge on the fee to the EAC came on the back of the government paying some of the hitherto striking civil servants their April and May salaries.

South Sudan officially joined the EAC in April, joining Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania and Rwanda.

Analysts say the war-torn country's entry into the EAC would benefit it economically as South Sudan imports almost everything from its neighbors and that it would go a long way in helping stabilize the country's troubled politics ruined by the civil conflict which erupted in December, 2013.

The civil conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, with more than four million facing starvation.

A peace deal signed last August by President Kiir and former rebel leader and now First Vice President Riek Machar under UN pressure led to the formations of a transitional government of national unity in April. Endit