Opponents of Darfur Authority head demand his dismissal

The Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)-Sudan have requested the Sudanese president to relieve the head of the Darfur Regional Authority (DRA) from his function.

In a joint LJM and JEM-Sudan press conference in Khartoum on Tuesday, the DRA Minister of Infrastructure and Reconstruction accused the Sudanese Darfur Peace Follow-up Office of not being neutral regarding the disagreements between the signatories of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD).

Minister Tajeddin Nyam strongly denied the claim made by Dr Amin Hassan Omar, head of the governmental Darfur Peace Follow-up Office, that all parties to the DDPD agree on the presidency of Dr El Tijani Sese.

“The failure of the DDPD signatories to reach a consensus on the subject prompted the NJM and JEM-Sudan to submit a memorandum to the Presidency of the Republic in which we call for a review of the performance of the DRA concerning alleged financial and administrative corruption.

“We demanded the relief of Sese from his post, and temporarily replace him by a governor of one of the five Darfur states. In addition, the Authority's chairmanship should be subject to consultation between the Presidency and the DDPD signatories and not to quotas.”

The Minister called for an independent investigation into the cases of financial and administrative corruption by the DRA, including the non-appointment of a chairman of the Darfur Development Fund for five years “despite our repeated requests”.

He denied Sese's claims that the DRA carried out 315 development projects in Darfur, saying that fraud occurred in the management, distribution, control and supervision of the projects.

New projects

On Tuesday, the DRA signed contracts with the companies that will connect the region of Darfur with the Sudanese electricity grid, at a cost of $200 million.

The contracts were signed at the Friendship Hall in Khartoum that was cordoned by a police force, being part of security measures after the fight that broke out between supporters of Sese and members of the NJM at El Salam Rotana last Wednesday.

Sese's opponents stormed the podium during the inauguration of Phase Two of the Darfur development projects. They demanded to read a statement in protest against the DRA's way of working concerning the Darfur development projects. When security guards intervened, a fight erupted, and the signing ceremony was called off.

Addressing the attendants of the signing ceremony on Tuesday, the head of the Council of Ministers Ahmed Saad Omar stressed his government’s support for the development projects in Darfur and called on the DRA parties to surpass their differences.

Sese said that the costs of connecting the states of Darfur with the national electricity network amount to $200 million, which is financed by the Arab Economic Development Fund.