Sudan economy: Call for ‘real reforms’

Experts and researchers in the field of economics have criticised the current policies adopted by the transitional government to address the economic deterioration in the country, and demand the government be transparent and conduct structural reforms in the Sudanese economy.

At a seminar in Khartoum this week to discuss possible solutions to revive the Sudanese economy by arresting the collapse of the Sudanese pound and the continuing high inflation rates, independent economist Hafiz Ismail said that the Sudanese economy needs a the issue of transparency in budgets and their sources, and an evaluation of the government’s economic performance.

He pointed to monopolisation and fraud, especially with regard to the distribution of investment opportunities and contracts, which affects the attraction of foreign investment.

“There are companies that do not pay taxes and are not subject to accountability, which creates difficulty in their competition,” he said. “This is in addition to companies that monopolise the market and control the prices, raising them at will.”

Ismail called the restructuring the Sudanese economy by making “real reforms”, raising the technical capabilities graduate students so that they can join the work force in the investment sector, and reviewing all investment contracts signed under the previous regime, due to its non-compliance with the necessary requirements and its environmental impact.

Economist Kamal Abdelkarim, a member of the Communist Party of Sudan, said that the current government lacks any clear economic policy to address the economic deterioration.

“The current approach the government wants to follow serves the interests of parasitic capitalism, and that will lead to destroying the slogans and goals of the December revolution,” he stated.

He stressed that the reality of Sudan today is not similar to the reality in which Sudan dealt with the World Bank earlier, referring to the severe poverty and unemployment in the country.

“The government will find great difficulty in implementing the proposed economic policies, because of the inability of the current state apparatus to achieve any economic policy.”

Abdelkarim attributed this to “the control of elements of the previous regime over the joints of the economy in all government institutions, and their work against any policies followed by the government”.

He called for the need to seek the help from “the revolutionary youth who carry new ideas to remove all the elements of the previous regime from the country’s institutions”.

The economist acknowledged the importance of the role of the International Monetary Fund and the need to deal with it, but with a different approach. He referred to the possibility of offsetting Sudan’s debts with the World Bank with the large sums of money smuggled abroad by the former regime.

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