Customs officers at Sudan-Egypt border on strike, El Burhan intervenes

Workers of the Wadi Halfa Customs Clearance Department at the border crossings to Egypt downed their tools on Saturday in protest against the increase in clearance costs and tough import conditions. On Tuesday, army commander-in-chief and head of the Sovereignty Council, Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan decided to transfer the supervision of customs clearance to the council.

Members of the Customs Clearance Chambers Union and freight workers at the Sudanese-Egyptian border in Northern State went on strike to protest against to new measures, including the weekly increase in the Customs Dollar rate, the delay in procedures, and the imposition of tax fees by various government agencies at the border crossings.

At the beginning of this month, the Customs Administration informed the customs about a new decision prohibiting the clearance of any import transaction except through an electronic import form, with payments exclusively dealt with by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS). The measure aims to regulate the market and ensure effective control over all import operations and payment methods, protecting the available foreign currency market and combating dealings via the parallel market.

The authority that issued the decision was not announced. Several customs officers believe that the decision was issued by the Ministry of Trade supervising the customs operations, while others say that it was issued by the Ministry of Finance through the CBoS.

Weekly fee raise

A customs officer told Radio Dabanga from Wadi Halfa that the Customs Administration increases the customs clearance fees weekly with 50 US Dollars. “Every Saturday morning, the Customs Administration set a new increase in the customs tariff price, by 50 Dollars without any justification. These repeated increases have doubled the prices of goods and caused a recession in the markets,” he said.

“Additionally, every party related to the crossings, such as the Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organisation, the ministries of Trade, Finance, Health, Transport, Agricultural, the Traffic Police, and other institutions, imposes its own illogical taxes. All these fees further increase the prices of the goods.”

The revenues of the Ashkeet and Argeen border crossings are estimated at around $500,000, while an estimated 80 to 100 loaded lorries are crossing the border per day.

The new measures of the Customs Administration do not differentiate between large and small traders. “Furthermore, the administration is very strict in demanding banking documents from merchants through Customs Form 10, they are all forced to have an account with the Bank of Sudan,” the source explained.

“These decisions are not appropriate for a border area, which should have preferential advantage in the flow of goods. Especially as the country is in a state of war and people are living in harsh conditions that require relief instead of burdening their living costs,” he said, and warned that the new decisions will cause a recession in the market.   

As for Form 10, a form following global customs procedures and allowing the passage of goods without customs from one border customs clearance office to another within the country, the customs officers said. “Form 10 was more and more applied without specifications, which raised suspicions of corruption, especially as it is well known that influential traders are smuggling many goods with legal documents.”

Banning ‘bag trade’

Customs clearance officer Mohamed Abdelhafiz explained that the electronic import form “is now only issued for goods worth more than $5,000, which means that small traders are banned”.  

On Tuesday, the acting director of the Argeen Customs Branch, Col Moawya Badawi, banned travel buses from shipping commercial goods to the customs yard.

“This decision is intended to deprive small traders, known as “bag traders”, of their commercial activities, which make up their livelihoods. So, instead of solving the problem, Customs is working to complicate it.”

A member of the Customs Clearance Department in Wadi Halfa commented that “there are already millions of unemployed people in Sudan due to the war. They are desperately seeking for any possibility of earning an income, so this decision will increase unemployment, open the doors to smuggling, and exacerbate the suffering of the people in the region”.

He explained that “small traders are an important segment of the country’s economy as they stimulate border trade and contribute to the stability of the exchange rate”.

Other demands

The head of the Services Committee of the People of Wadi Halfa Council, Mohamed Abdelghafour, confirmed to Radio Dabanga on Saturday that customs clearance procedures completely halted at the Ashkeet, Argeen, and Gustul border crossings.

“The state is not affected that much as can retract its decisions with not much harm, but the people are bearing the brunt. There are currently more than 3,000 people involved by these decisions. More than 800 freight workers and more than 430 customs officers downed their tools. The residents of Ashkeet and Argeen are economically affected by the stoppage of work at the crossings. Transportation halted and banks closed their doors,” Abdelghafour stated.

“We held a short meeting with the Wadi Halfa Residents Council, the Clearance Chambers Union, and the Freight Workers Group. They all agreed to deliver a memorandum to the director of Wadi Halfa locality, in his capacity as head of the Wadi Halfa Security Committee and ask him to forward our demands to the Northern State government today or tomorrow.

“The strikers gave them three days to meet their demands to cancel the latest decisions,” he added, and said that the people of Wadi Halfa demanded a five per cent share in the custom fees, to be spent on the development of the region.

Intervention

The Egyptian authorities called on their Sudanese counterparts to contain the situation after the lines of lorries were rapidly growing on the Egyptian side of the Gustul and Argeen crossings.

On Tuesday, Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, directed the transferral of the supervision of the border crossings with Egypt to Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, but the strikers continued their sit-in.

The Sovereignty Council’s media office said in a press release that the decision came “to facilitate procedures at the border crossings” and “to ensure the flow of commercial traffic by the speedy clearance of goods”.

Several customs officers downplayed El Burhan’s decision, saying that border crossing control falls under the jurisdiction of the customs authorities.

“The Sovereignty Council does not have a mechanism for the oversight of the customs procedures,” one of them told Radio Dabanga yesterday. “Moreover, because of the war, the Bank of Sudan is not able anymore to provide foreign currency to finance imports.”

According to customs officer Mohamed Abdelhafiz, the decision to return the control over the customs at the border crossings to the Sovereignty Council does not address the problem. “The crossings used to be under the presidency of the republic. they were moved to the Ministry of Transport, which just became incapable of managing the customs operations.”