Anti-corruption committee set up in Khartoum state

An Empowerment* Elimination, Anti-Corruption and Funds Recovery Committee has been set up in Khartoum state. It is the first state anti-corruption committee in Sudan.

Mohamed El Faki, member of the Sovereign Council and acting chairman of the Sudanese Empowerment Elimination, Anti-Corruption and Funds Recovery Committee, spoke at the opening session of the Khartoum state anti-corruption committee yesterday.

El Faki stressed that the committee is political by nature and operates within the confines of the law. Its main task is to undo injustices inflicted upon Sudanese people by the Al Bashir regime. Achieving peace and economic growth are part of the tasks of the new state committee as well, he added.

El Faki said that the former regime plundered wealth in the name of Empowerment in all Sudan states. He promised that the national Empowerment Elimination, Anti-Corruption and Funds Recovery Committee will share experiences and ideas with the states about the role and functioning of the state committees. The anti-corruption committee in Khartoum state will be bigger than that in the other states, he said. He added that the current government would not follow the example of the former regime by dictating top-down decisions.

The Empowerment Elimination, Anti-Corruption, and Funds Recovery Committee announced the long-awaited establishment of branches in 15 of the 18 Sudanese states in September.

In June, the Sudanese Empowerment Elimination, Anti-Corruption, and Funds Recovery Committee discovered that ousted President Omar Al Bashir received a monthly “special, extra-statutory subsistence allowance” of $20 million on his personal bank account. It also instructed funds, accounts, movables, assets and real estate to be seized from several money transfer companies in Sudan, which channeled money out of the country in the Al Bashir era, circumventing the US sanctions imposed on the Sudanese banking sector. 651 officials and employees affiliated with the dissolved National Congress Party (NCP) of Omar Al Bashir were dismissed.

Last week, the Empowerment Elimination, Anti-Corruption, and Funds Recovery Committee terminated the employment of 209 advisers to the Ministry of Justice and 30 ambassadors at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

* The Committee was established by the government of PM Abdallah Hamdok at the end of last year, with the aim to purge Sudan of the remnants of the Al Bashir regime. Empowerment (tamkin) is the term with which the ousted government of Omar Al Bashir supported its affiliates in state affairs by granting them far-going privileges, including government functions and the setting-up of various companies.

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