Juba,

South Sudan's Council of Ministers has approved a $2.71 billion budget for the 2022/2023 financial year.

The Cabinet, in a meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir on Friday, consented to the amended 1.3 trillion South Sudanese pounds ($2.71 billion) spending plan.

The new budget shot up by 558 billion South Sudanese pounds ($1.187 billion), which the government said is the deficit.

"The Finance minister made his final presentations to the Cabinet and according to the presentation, the amount offered is within the budget chapters," Information minister Michael Makuei said.

"So, the gross available resource is SSP 832,806,935,678, which is part of the budget. The financial gap which is added is SSP 558,669,980,774. So, if you add this to the available resources, the budget will be within 1.3 trillion pounds," Mr Makuei added.

The Finance minister had tabled a SSP862 billion budget early last week.

Mr Makuei told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that the government would raise taxes and borrow to plug the deficit.

"The deficit will be covered by increasing the collection of the non-oil revenues, increasing the production in the oil sector and also, if possible, by borrowing from other countries."

Read: South Sudan's oil production plummets

The government's spending plan for the year starting July 1 will be tabled before the parliament this month.

By law, the budget should be submitted to the national legislature no later than May 15 of each financial year, but this has not been happening for the last two years.

Parliament passed the SSP338 billion ($1.87 billion) budget for the current fiscal year 2021/2022 in March.