Sudan still withholding $13 mln needed for census – UN

March 31, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s government has not released $13 million in funds needed to pay those carrying out its first census since a north-south peace deal ended Africa’s longest civil war in 2005, a U.N. official said on Monday.

The census, highly politicised because it will help determine wealth and power sharing, has been delayed by disputes over the questions to be asked, funding and difficulties mapping massive, mine-ridden remote areas.

Rebels from Sudan’s outlying reaches have fought central government for more a equal share of resources on and off since 1955. Sudan produces more than 500,000 barrels per day of oil.

The census is due to start on April 15 and for two weeks will employ around 60,000 people throughout the million square mile nation to count the number of people, with questions on whether they are northern or southern — critical for a 2011 referendum in which southerners could decide on secession.

“This year they (the government) said they would pay an additional $18 million … but they have only released $5 million as we speak,” Herbert Kandeh, the chief U.N. technical adviser to the census, said.

He said this was for salaries for those filling out the questionnaires and said if employees were not paid they may be reluctant to hand over their work, so it was important to have the money as early as possible.

The government has promised it by the end of this week, but even then it could take weeks to filter down, he added.

“The result of the census will be used to determine constituencies for power sharing and wealth sharing so that’s what makes the Sudan census very unique and very political,” Kandeh said in the interview with Reuters and the BBC.

ELECTIONS

While the census would not be an electoral registration, it would help determine the spread and number of constituencies.

Under the 2005 peace deal, elections will be held by end 2009. The war was fuelled by religion, ethnicity and oil. Many in the north are Muslim and many southerners are Christian or follow animist faiths.

But after decades of north-south war much of the old distrust has complicated the census implementation, which will cost $103 million in total, part funded by donors.

Kandeh said southern authorities kept changing their minds on including questions on ethnicity and religion but questionnaires were eventually printed with those issues removed, instead adding a question on whether people were northerners, southerners, or neither.

He said the north had rejected printing extra questionnaires for the south fearing the equivalent of ballot-stuffing during the census.

But Kandeh said despite all the obstacles he was optimistic the census would finally happen between April 15-30.

In Sudan’s western Darfur region five years of war has displaced 2.5 million and international experts estimate some 200,000 have died. Many in Darfur’s refugee camps distrust the government and have refused to take part in the census.

Kandeh said 34 percent of camps within Darfur and 19 percent of its administrative areas had not been accessed either because of insecurity or because they refused to take part, but he hoped that would change during discussions ahead of April 15.

Kandeh said the final census results were expected around September.

(Reuters)