Sudan faces fuel shortage

Text by: RFI Follow

Ten months after Omar el-Bashir's departure, Sudan is facing shortages of gasoline, bread and foreign exchange. The new government, in place since last August, inherited a very difficult economic situation from which it is struggling to get out.

Publicity

The gasoline supply problems are due to a faulty pipeline, said the Sudanese government. The latter also lacks money to be able to buy oil from the Gulf countries. In Khartoum, the queues lengthen in front of the few gas stations still open.

Mohamed has been waiting in his car for more than two hours. There are still a dozen motorists ahead of him. “ I am a dentist and today I could not go to work because I have to wait to get gas. I have to fill the tank to be able to go to work the next few days. "

A rationing system has been set up: each motorist can only receive 20 liters of fuel per day. In Sudan, gasoline is subsidized, it costs only 6 Sudanese pounds per liter. But to escape the wait and rationing, motorists willing to pay more for their gasoline can since Saturday.

" Not the right method to resolve the crisis "

The Association of Sudanese Professionals , the spearhead of the revolution, fears that the government will reverse the subsidy system.

" We had agreed that there would be an economic conference to discuss the problem of subsidies and more broadly the economic problems between the government and the Forces of Freedom and Change, recalls Mohamed Nagy Alassam, one of the APS spokesperson. We note that the government has already started to lift these subsidies without our having this discussion. We believe that this will damage relations between the CTFs, the APS and the government. And we believe that this is not the right method to resolve the economic crisis . "

This petrol crisis, which comes on top of the bread crisis, further complicates the lives of Sudanese people.

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Download the app

• Sudan
• Oil

On the same subject

Africa Report

Sudan: the importance of resistance committees

Sudan: agreement reached with relatives of the victims of the USS Cole attack

Reportage

Sudanese refugees in Chad tell of their hell in Darfur