Food, sugar prices soar in Sudan as Ramadan approaches

Prices of essential food and consumer goods have risen as the holy month of fasting, Ramadan, approaches. Especially sugar prices have gone up.

A sack of sugar weighing 50 kilos has risen to SDG1,850 ($39*) in Khartoum and to SDG2,000 ($42) in West and South Kordofan.

Traders expect a continued rise in the US Dollar prices in the coming days because of increasing imports for the needs of the holy month of Ramadan that will start at the beginning of May.

Meanwhile the fuel crisis has exacerbated with the vehicles lining up in Khartoum in long queues for fuel yesterday. The Minister of Oil and Gas, Ishag Bashir, acknowledged the crisis and attributed it to administrative problems.

A car owner working for Tirhal (the Sudanese equivalent of the Uber taxi system) said that he had been looking a long time for benzine in Khartoum and Omdurman since early morning.

In addition, a worker at Omdurman station told Radio Dabanga that the fuel had been cut off at the station since Tuesday evening, for which no one knew the reasons.

Farmers in Wadi El Oshar in River Nile state have complained about the halt in the production of gold by about 70 per cent because of the shortage of diesel and the cash crisis. In addition, the price of one tank of water rose to SDG10,000 ($210).

Water scarcity

Murnei camp for displaced people in West Darfur suffers from an acute water crisis.

“People are now forced to buy water at the black market for extremely high prices,” a camp sheikh told Radio Dabanga.

He said the water crisis began three months ago because of the inability of the state’s water service provider to do proper work, and it has neglected digging wells and providing fuel to operate the water pumps.

He appealed to the authorities and organisations to intervene to resolve the problem.

* As effective foreign exchange rates can vary in Sudan, Radio Dabanga bases all SDG currency conversions on the daily US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CboS)