In its fourth month .. Protests exacerbate the economy of "scarcity" in Sudan

Hamad Fadl-Khartoum

If the stumbling blocks of the Sudanese economy before the protests have become more difficult in the light of the continuation of three months, and perhaps the government extinguished the spark of demonstrations, "bread" but the lines of fuel and money is still long.

The grim face of Sudan's economic crises is evident in Khartoum, but in the states it is more clear and harsh, observers said.

As protests enter their fourth month, fuel shortages are exacerbated to the point where private mining - the most expensive supplier of hard currency - has stopped due to the lack of gasoline, and hundreds of gold miners return to their villages and cities.

In Khartoum North, the main bus station heading to the Nile state, dozens of miners arrive throughout the day. Two of them told Al Jazeera.net, "The lack of gasoline has paralyzed everything. We left because to stay there without difficult and expensive production."

Gold mines
"Some 150,000 minerals in the largest conventional mining mines in the Abu Hamad district are threatened with the loss of their jobs due to the fuel crisis," said Mubarak Abbas, a parliamentary deputy chairman of Al-Jazeera Net.

He points out that there are three prices for gasoline in an area that used to consume about 40,000 gallons a day before the crisis: a subsidized price of 780 pounds per barrel, a trade price of 4.9 thousand pounds and a black market price of 10,000 pounds.

The region includes, according to Abbas, mechanisms including 150 gorges for sedimentary gold, and five to six thousand machines for gasoline, including dredgers, trucks and mufflers.

Mubarak complains that emergency orders that prohibit the acquisition and transportation of fuel have exacerbated the problem of multiple prices, and suggested that the government allow the contractors to contract for the import of fuel.

It is important for the security services to distribute fuel as their control functions only, while the transfer and distribution of fuel should be the province of local governments, referring to the use of minerals to cities to free service stations mining areas.

States state
Although the ranks of cars in service stations in the capital Khartoum have become rare, but in most of the states of the country has become a normal image.

Journalist Mohammed Saeed, who returns from his hometown in Halfa al-Jadida, Kassala state, told Al-Jazeera Net that a fuel crisis is brewing in the eastern state, especially gasoline.

He notes that hundreds of Toyota cars used to transport citizens are lined up daily for a weekly quota, but drivers rather than passengers are selling their share on the black market and are on another job waiting for another share.

"Bread is still a problem in the state of Kassala between small and thin," he said, adding that security is the task of the local government to distribute and guard state quotas of fuel and flour.

In Wad Madani, capital of the island state, car drivers get a gallon of gasoline (4.5 liters) at 33 pounds (less than one dollar) after standing long in the rows, but the same quantity sold easily on the black market by 150-200 pounds (about 3.1-4.2 dollars ).

The suffering of the dramas
The economic crisis affected the drama artists, after the demonstrations broke down the season of organizing parties in New Year's Day, either to solidarity artists with victims or to prevent authorities for fear of gathering.

Representative Awad Shakespeare told Al-Jazeera Net that the protests continued to affect and affect them, especially as Ramadan marks a season for dramas. "But for the people who demonstrated, our interests will stop."

"The revolution has stopped our work, but in honor of the people we will look for other ways to provide a living for our children and express our art until the situation is reversed."

Referring to the state of polarization produced by the protests, Shakespeare says there are calls to boycott "Sudanese 24", "Omdurman" and the rest of the non-watch channels. "The dramas were already suffering from the scarcity of frameworks before the revolution, Who can produce and provide advertising sponsorship. "

Suggested solutions
When protests broke out on December 19 because of the doubling of bread prices in Atbara and Port Sudan, Sudanese time in the capital Khartoum was almost divided between the queues of cash and bread and the scramble for a seat in a public vehicle.

Khartoum does not suffer from the scarcity of bread and transportation, but the money crisis seems more difficult despite the printing of the two hundred and two hundred pounds, while the fifth category is expected to be traded in April.

Banks have given customers low ceilings to withdraw from their savings, which is not available now in most banks, and it became a pity to see queues in front of ATMs, but not for the availability of banknotes, but because they are empty.

The adviser in the stock market Taha Hussein of the island Net that the central bank and within the solution to the problem of the exit of the mass of cash from the banking system drove ATMs out of his calculations, in an attempt to besiege the traders of "Cache."

It is proposed to adopt the customer's credit code within the treatments to limit these practices, as well as benefit from the recent emergency order issued by President Omar al-Bashir to prohibit the storage of the pound and speculation.

Since last year, the Sudanese pound has become a commodity that is sold and bought at two prices, a larger check and less cash, similar to the sale and purchase of the dollar that has been rampant for years outside the banks.

Emergency paper
Taha Hussein said that if the emergency law was applied without exception and targeted the main currency store places in the gold and automobile markets, it would be possible to address the shortage of money by transferring the stocks of traders from the currency to their bank accounts.

He sees no solution in printing more of the currency. Rather, the solution is to stop the practices associated with scarcity and price differentials. Any money that comes out of the banks will not be returned to them under an initial gain of 15 to 20 percent against the check.

According to the adviser on the stock market, the difference between the check and the Kash applied even in the sale of gold by five hundred pounds per gram gold.

He pointed out the seriousness of the concentration of cash outside the banking system, saying that the print out of money 113.9 billion pounds according to the Central Bank's report on 31 December 2018, including 112.8 billion pounds in the market, and about 1.1 billion pounds in commercial banks.

To solve this problem, Hussain calls on the government to exploit telecommunications services with 29 million mobile phones, 13 million of which are connected to the Internet and can be linked to the "barcode" system.

Invoice protests
The protests themselves have put pressure on the battered economy, with thousands of riot police in high gear since last December.

With only the use of tear gas canisters, the public treasury will face enormous pressure, especially after the importation of large quantities of it to dispel the almost endless demonstrations.

According to information available on the web, the price of a gas canister and a sound bomb varies between $ 18 and $ 53.

In February, police forces were forced to use 22,000 gas cans in Khartoum alone, and Imadada in the island state was threatened more than once.

For two months, protesters have known several types of gas bombs and many countries of origin, and have become alive in Khartoum, such as Shambat, Bree and Abbasiyah boasting of spoils of ballistics.