International Pretense and Ignorance Will Not Slow Sudan’s Economic Collapse
Eric Reeves | May 7, 2018 | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2f9
A dispatch from Radio Dabanga today [ https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/sudan-fuel-crisis-has-reached-its-limit ] makes clear the largest implications of the economic implosion that continues in Sudan. And as the full scale of the multiple, if inter-related, economic crises comes into focus, portents of massive disasters are everywhere. The most serious threaten various of the agricultural sectors and this year’s harvests in particular. But the greatest immediate danger, with the rainy season impending, will be to the transportation of humanitarian supplies, and particularly to Darfur, where relief access is already seriously impeded by the Khartoum regime.
If the camps for displaced persons are indeed dismantled as promised by the regime’s génocidaires, then it will be impossible to reach the more than 2 million who count on camps as a source of tenuous security and as places where relief efforts by humanitarian organizations can be concentrated and organized. Without the camps, in the midst of a dramatic fuel crisis–one that comes just before the rainy season (which makes transportation difficult if not impossible in many areas)–we have the potential for the “perfect storm” of human destruction.
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Sudan fuel crisis “has reached its limit” | Radio Dabanga, May 6, 2018 | SUDAN
The fuel crisis that has been plaguing Sudan since March has led to an almost entire stop of traffic and public transport, especially in the periphery of the country. Officials attribute the scarcity of fuel to the corruption in the country. “The Sudanese call the ongoing fuel scarcity ‘katma’ [suppression, stifling], which means that the crisis has reached its limit,” an angry listener reported from Khartoum. “We are unable to move within the city or to other places. Buses are standing idle as the owners cannot afford the ridiculously high petrol and diesel prices at the black market,” he complained.
The fuel crisis prompted a number of car owners to perform their Friday prayers at the Petro-Energy petrol station, next to the Military Intelligence offices in Khartoum. Activists took pictures and videos of them and posted them on social media to contradict Sudanese officials who claimed the crisis has been solved.
The transportation in many places in Darfur has stopped entirely because of the depletion of fuel.
[The implications of this lack of transportation, particularly for humanitarian supplies, will be catastrophic in the near term, particularly if the camps for displaced persons are closed and people dispersed—ER]
“The black-market price of a barrel of petrol ranges from SDG 9,000 ($ 320*) to SDG 14,000 ($ 500) and diesel between SDG 7,000 and SDG 9,000,” a car owner reported from El Fasher, capital of North Darfur. He said that the scarcity of fuel led to skyrocketing prices of basic commodities. “The price of a [100kg] sack of millet rose from SDG 1,500 pounds to SDG 2,100, and a [100kg] sack of sorghum from SDG 1,400 to SDG 2,000. We now pay SDG 1,500 ($ 53) for a [50kg] sack of sugar.” In eastern Sudan, the price of a bus ticket from El Gedaref town to El Galabat jumped from SDG 17 to SDG 50. A listener reported from Doka that all grain mills stopped working. In Atbara in Nile River State, the price of a ticket from Atbara to Khartoum rose from SDG 100 ($ 28) to SDG 250.
Corruption
According to former Finance Minister Abdelrahim Hamdi, the country’s economic crisis is caused by the widespread corruption in the country. “The fat cats are known by name. They control the entire sugar and cement trade in Sudan,” he told reporters in Khartoum on Friday. The former minister expects the economic crisis to continue if economic and political freedoms are not restored.
[Corruption is indeed the ultimate cause of the present economic collapse in Sudan; this has been the case for the 29 years of National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime tyranny. The scale of corruption was and its effects on the economy by the flush years of “petro-dollars” (roughly 1998 to 2011). But without oil export revenues, there is no Foreign Exchange Currency with which to purchase the refined petroleum products that are in such short supply. With terrible short-sightedness, the NIF/NCP did not invest in adequate domestic refining capacity when it had the financial ability to do so. The consequences are now being felt—ER]
Refineries shut
An employee of El Jeili Refineries north of Khartoum that stopped operating a month ago because of annual maintenance, attributed the scarcity of fuel to the reduction of quotas of petroleum products distributed to companies. “The crisis will most probably continue,” he told this station. “I doubt the Ministry of Oil will be able to meet the consumption needs after the government’s stocks decreased.” In December last year, economists predicted a serious fuel crisis after the final decommissioning of the Port Sudan refinery, and the shutdown of El Jeili refinery for maintenance in early March.
Food security
Farmers in Sudan, especially in the eastern and central parts of the country, have warmed for harvest failures because of the scarcity of fuel. Members of El Gezira and El Managil Scheme, south of Khartoum, reported to Radio Dabanga two weeks ago that owners of tractors increased the lease price to be able to cope with the increase of the fuel prices. In El Gedaref, crops are in danger because of the lack of fuel needed for the irrigation pumps.
“The sorghum harvest is fully paralysed because of the ongoing lack of diesel needed for our [harvesting] machines. The irrigation pumps are stalled for the same reason, which means that the cultivation of vegetables this year will almost certainly fail,” a farmer told this station. Owners of orchards and vegetable farms in South Kordofan fear they will lose their crops because of the lack of fuel needed for the water pumps.
[The effects of fuel shortages in the agricultural sector pose the gravest threat the marginalized populations of Darfur; the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNet) warning is not nearly urgent enough—ER]
In its Early Warning Early Action report on food security and agriculture for April-June 2018, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) confirmed that the continuing scarcity of fuel is threatening the 2018-2019 agricultural season. The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) reported in its latest update that the “continued impact of the deteriorating macro-economic situation in Sudan has been exacerbated by the fuel shortages across the country between late March and the beginning of April 2018. This has led to high transportation costs, which resulted in high prices of food and non-food items across different parts of the country.” FEWS NET predicts a decline in the food security situation in South Kordofan, Kassala, and North Darfur between June and September.
Humanitarian aid
The fuel shortages are slowing down humanitarian operations as well. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported in its latest update on the situation of South Sudanese refugees in Sudan that the lack of fuel across Sudan, which worsened at the end of March, is affecting response logistics.
[Transportation of food and humanitarian supplies to Darfur is also being compromised, and will certainly become even more inadequate as the rainy season, beginning next month, begins to make transportation even more difficult. And yet the international community is almost completely ignoring this massive crisis-in-the-making—ER]
Media
In end April, the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) prohibited the press in Sudan to publish any information related to the fuel crisis. In a directive to the editors-in-chief of newspapers, the NISS instructed them not to cover the crisis, protests, and demonstrations but “to be satisfied with official statements issued by the government on these topics.”
[The NIF/NCP regime’s inevitable response to news that reflects its disastrous management of the Sudanese economy: repression and censorship—ER]