Steering committee to establish Sudan gold and minerals bourse

Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Jibril Ibrahim who also chairs the Board of Directors of the Stock Markets Regulatory Authority, has issued a decision forming a steering committee to prepare for establishment of a gold and minerals bourse, chaired by First Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance.

Announced via the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) today, the committee comprises in its membership the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Minerals, the Director General of the Stock Markets Regulatory Authority, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Sudan, the Director General of the Sudan Gold Refinery, and El Tayeb El Jali of the Khartoum Stocks Exchange as a member and rapporteur. The committee  experts specialized in global financial markets for precious metals, Amr Zakaria Abdo and Abdulazim El Omawi.

The committee’s tasks include, among others, setting an executive plan for the establishment of the bourse, and devising a vision for the infrastructure for it in accordance with the internationally recognised standards in the stock exchanges.

Gold

The total gold production of Sudan in 2020 reached 36.6 tons, which is 9.6 tons more than in 2019, the director of the Sudanese Company for Mineral Resources, Mubarak Ardol, reported in January.

The gold revenues amounted to SDG 22.5 billion, of which SDG 16.6 billion was deposited at the Ministry of Finance.

In October 2019, the government officially took over control the Jebel Amer gold mines* in North Darfur from Al Junaid Company. Minister of Finance Heba Mohamed lauded the agreement signed at the mines in El Sereif Beni Hussein locality in North Darfur.

In March this year, the government also established state control over gold exports. The Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS) will from now on purchase gold at global stock market prices. It will also establish a Sudanese gold exchange.

*Jebel Amer gold mines

The Revolutionary Awakening Council (RAC) headed by former Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal seized control of the Jebel Amer gold mining area in North Darfur in July 2015. According to a UN Security Council report in April 2016, Hilal and his entourage were profiting from vast gold sales in Darfur.

Sources claim that Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemeti’, Commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, was behind the arrest of Hilal in 2017, and took over the operation of the mines.

As for the El Junaid [Algunade] Company he is linked with by family ties, Hemeti says the company extracts between 30-40 kilograms of gold a month from the Jebel Amer mines i, with which it supplies hard currency to the Central Bank of Sudan.

According to the INGO Global Witness, Hemeti captured a large part of the gold market in Sudan in previous years. Reuters stated in November that the “militia leader grew rich by selling gold“. In December 2019, he reportedly started arrangements to hand the mining areas in Jebel Amer to the government.