Struggle over Sudan’s energy ministry delays new govt

Sept 14, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — A struggle over Sudan’s energy ministry is delaying the formation of a post-civil war government, Salva Kiir, first vice president of Sudan and leader of a former rebel group said in comments published on Wednesday.

Officials from Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) have said the new coalition government, possible after a January peace deal, would be announced around Sept. 7.

“The vying between the National Congress and the SPLM over the energy portfolio is delaying the formation of the national unity government,” independent Sudanese daily newspaper Khartoum Monitor reported Kiir as saying.

The peace deal gives the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) 52 percent of the government and the SPLM 28 percent. Other northern and southern political parties will share the remaining seats in government.

The power-sharing government was originally scheduled to be in place by early August but was delayed after Kiir’s predecessor John Garang died in a July helicopter crash.

The Khartoum Monitor reported Kiir told the newspaper in the southern town of Juba that control of the energy ministry was important for the development of southern Sudan, where a United Nations agency has said 90 percent live on less than $1 a day.

The newspaper reported an SPLM source said securing control of the energy ministry was vital for the group’s standing amongst southern Sudanese.

Sudan’s north-south civil war, Africa’s longest, killed around 2 million people, mainly through disease and hunger. Issues of oil and ethnicity complicated the conflict.

Sudan produces over 300,000 barrels of oil a day and says output will rise to 500,000 barrels a day by the end of the year.

(Reuters/ST)