Sudan’s anti-corruption committee seizes funds

The Sudanese Anti-Corruption Committee instructed funds, accounts, movables, assets and real estate to be seized from several money transfer companies in Sudan. Ousted President Omar Al Bashir received $20 million a month on his personal bank account, the committee discovered.

At a press conference yesterday evening, Mohamed El Faki, member of the Sovereign Council and acting chairman of the Empowerment* Elimination, Anti-Corruption, and Funds Recovery Committee, announced the dismissal of 651 officials and employees affiliated with the dissolved National Congress Party (NCP) of Al Bashir.

El Faki further reported that the former president received a monthly “special, extra-statutory subsistence allowance” of $20 million on his Omdurman Bank account for years. The bank account held $3 million when Al Bashir was ousted in April 2019.

New criminal charges have been filed against him for squandering state funds on personal expenses.

The NCP also purchased an aeroplane, El Faki said. It is now at Khartoum International Airport.

The committee also listed the names of people who received money from companies belonging to prominent NCP members, such as well-known media outlets and money transfer companies.

Committee member Dr Salah Mannaa said at the press conference that these money transfer companies damaged the Sudanese economy. The ousted regime used them to channel money out of the country and to circumvent the US sanctions imposed on the Sudanese banking sector.

These money transfer companies contributed directly to the fall of the Sudanese Pound, because they were involved in currency trade on the parallel market, Mannaa explained.

He said they all wondered how it could happen that a head of state was responsible for illegal currency trade, the fall of the Sudanese Pound, and massive inflation.

The Anti-Corruption Committee was established by Sudan’s new government in the end of last year, with the aim to purge Sudan from remnants of the Al Bashir regime. In May, a “Sovereign Fund” was set-up for the management of illegally acquired properties seized from officials of the former regime since January this year.

* Empowerment (tamkin) is the term with which the ousted government of Omar Al Bashir supported its affiliates in state affairs by granting them far-going privileges, including government functions and the setting-up of various companies.

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