Health Minister calls for review of Darfur projects

The Sudanese Federal Minister of Health, Bahar Idris Abu Garda, has called for “a neutral review and evaluation” of reconstruction projects run by the Darfur Regional Authority (DRA).

In an interview on the Sudanese Ashrooq TV channel, Abu Garda, who is also Secretary-General of the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) said that “the Central Bank of Sudan has not provided the required facilitations to the Darfur Development Bank committed by Qatar”.

He pointed out that “only about 325 of the 1,070 projects have reached their first or second phase in the four years of the project… this calls for a neutral review and evaluation,” he said.

“If there are real projects carried out by the Qatari fund, why they were not opened during the First Vice President, Bakri Hassan Saleh’s, recent visit to Darfur?”

Abu Garda has been a frequent critic of the DRA. In July last year, he called for a reformation of the DRA and requested the government of Qatar to freeze its funding of development projects in Darfur. In August, he accused DRA head Dr Tijani Sese, of corruption.