The head of the Financial and Economic Planning Committee, Changkuoth Bichiok Reth, presented the law project that approves changing the name of the South Sudanese pound to the South Sudan pound.
During the parliamentary session discussions, parliamentarian Charles Majak, a member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), objected to the change, stating, “The currency belongs to the people, not the country.”
He added, “When this bill was brought for the second reading I objected to the amendment of South Sudanese Pound to South Sudan Pound and I said this word Sudanese is used for possession because money is a medium of exchange otherwise we have what we call barter trade.”
“It is the people who possess those resources in the form of money. Why would you delete Sudanese and put Sudan? South Sudan does not own the resources, it is the people who own the resources and they live within the international border in a place called South Sudan.” He said.
Changkuoth Bichiok Reth defended the changes, saying, “Money belongs to the country, and therefore the name should be changed accordingly.”
He added, “In all countries, money belongs to the country and is named after the country to which the people belong. Therefore, the currency should be called the South Sudan pound, and this is the practice.”
Dr. Addis Ababa Othow, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of South Sudan, stated that the change aligns with the practice in the region.
He explained that the regional practice regarding currency is to name it after the country. For example, in Kenya, they call it the Kenyan Shilling, and in Uganda, they call it the Ugandan Shilling. That’s why we changed it from the South Sudanese pound to the South Sudan pound.