Civil society supports Port Sudan workers

Civil society assemblies in Port Sudan continue to denounce the state’s government decision to establish new companies for loading and unloading at the ports. The move may negatively affect thousands of port workers.

The Port Sudan civil society assembly has warned the Red Sea government authorities of liquidating the ports and the workers' union on the pretext of privatisation.

A statement issued by the assembly this week said that the authorities “resorted to fraud” when they issued a decision to separate the southern port from the northern one. It then turned on the union of workers in the loading and unloading sectors, announcing its conversion into a public company – which would liquidate both the facilities.

The assembly explained that these attempts to liquidate the port and the workers’ union “adds to the series of failures to destroy the established institutions of the Sudanese people such as the railway, the Sudanese Airways and the Sudanese sea lines”.

On Wednesday, Radio Dabanga reported that about 150 ‘temporary’ port workers in Port Sudan have been denied access to permanent work contracts, in spite of having worked at the port for many years.

Civil society leader Abdallah Mousa told Radio Dabanga last month that “the new companies will open the way for competition in this field which adversely affects the workers at the ports at all levels”.

In February, a sit-in by workers who were dismissed by the Sea Ports Corporation in Port Sudan was held to hand a memorandum to the State Legislative Council. At the time the workers also complained of the continuation of the privatisation procedures, and how the large number of dismissals affects the lives of many families.