Sudan increases social support, cuts government spending
The government announced a series of measures on economy, peace, security military issues, foreign affairs and democratic transition following a three-day retreat in Suba suburb to assess its performances four months after the formation of the second transitional government.
The government has decided to immediately include one million families in the public health care system funded by the Ministry of Finance and the Zakat Bureau.
Also, the meeting decided to allocate a 10-billion pounds monthly grant to the state servants to meet the current economic hardship as of July 2021. Also, the government decided to reform the grade and salary bands as of the next year 2022.
The most important decision is to increase to 3 million families (some 15 million people) those who receive basic cash assistance within two months.
In addition, the government decide to increase the budget of another support programme (Silaati or my commodity), which provides cheap food commodities, from two billion Sudanese pounds ($4.51 million) to 10 billion pounds ($22.54 million).
All these measures aim to alleviate the adverse impacts of economic reforms made by the Sudanese government monitored by the IMF including the cut of commodities subsidies, floating of the Sudanese pound and the recent elimination of a special rate to calculate import duties.
The government furthermore decided to impose additional measures to control the hard currency market including the
Stop importing from the customer’s own resources and not allow import without banking procedures, banning importing goods from the customer’s own resources and not allow import without banking procedures.
Some traders used to buy hard currencies from the local market to import goods. This procedure contributed to the continued fall of the Sudanese pound in the foreign exchange market.
The government also announced a number of measures aiming to cut its spending in several areas including the reduction of travel costs of officials by 50%, fuel quotas for government cars by 20%, budgets of embassies, consulates and attaches by 25%.
The meeting also decided to cancel and review the allowances of all constitutional office holders from the former regime.
It was also decided to merge and restructure government agencies and companies to reduce public spending.
(ST)