JUBA – The government has announced that the Central Bank of South Sudan will now pay billions of dollars to local miners to buy gold, according to new directives from President Salva Kiir Mayardit.
The head of the Central Bank of South Sudan, Juma Abdallah Wani, said President Kiir has approved $4 million for the bank to build its mineral stockpile.
“The president never disappointed us, he requested the money to be released from the ministry of finance,” Juma Abdallah Wani told SSBC on Tuesday.
He revealed that the board of the bank also approved an additional $1.5 million to acquire crude gold.
The gold, according to the head of the Central Bank of South Sudan, will be acquired from local miners in the country.
It shall then be refined and stored within the bank.
“With that crude gold – if we have enough of it, then we can go to the next step of refining it. That means we are to keep pure gold with us in the bank,” he added.
Eastern Equatoria, is one of the regions in the country that contains some of the most important and best-known sites for artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
However, the 2012 Mining Act criminalizes black market gold sales but despite this legal framework, South Sudan’s gold remains ungoverned and poorly regulated.
