FEATURE-Peace promises economic revival in Sudanese town
By Katie Nguyen
RUMBEK, Sudan, May 18 (Reuters) – Rumbek emptied when civil war raged in the south of Africa’s biggest country but progress in peace talks is bringing people back.
Buyers and sellers crowd the cattle market to haggle over prices. Residents talk of peace breathing life into an economy devastated by more than two decades of conflict between SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) rebels and Sudan’s Arabic-speaking government.
Rickety wooden stalls boast previously scarce sugar, salt, soap and second-hand clothes bought in Uganda and resold in Sudan.
Trade has revived so much that the settlement of 45,000 plans to open its first bank to cash in on the economic activity generated by the new bars, shops and hotels.
“Business is booming, now that there’s relative stability,” said James Magok, a passer-by at the cattle auction.
“During the war people fled town because of the bombing and fighting. But now, the market is doing very well,” he said.
War broke out soon after independence in 1956 and has consumed Sudan for most of the intervening years.
In the south, the most recent phase of fighting has displaced four million people and killed some two million more mostly through hunger and disease. The conflict pits the Khartoum government against the mainly animist and Christian south, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.
The peace talks in neighbouring Kenya do not address a separate conflict in the western Darfur region in which thousands have been killed and hundred of thousands uprooted from their homes.
As dusk closes in, the auctioneer’s bell clangs loudly above the shouts of buyers scrutinising scores of cattle. Across Africa, the animals are a status symbol, measuring wealth and the price paid for a nubile bride.
Flashing a few tatty, smudged Sudanese pound notes — his day’s profit — auctioneer Awook Malek said sellers were bringing cows from as far away as Upper Nile, a neighbouring province.
Bank manager Aggrey Idri hopes businessmen like Malek will soon take their money from under the mattress and deposit it in Rumbek’s yet-to-be-opened Nile Commercial Bank.
The bank sits on the edge of the small town, overlooking Freedom Square where straight boulevards are lined with trees planted when the country was still a British colony.
Like the signing of a peace deal to end Sudan’s southern war, the opening of the bank has been postponed many times.
Iron bars have been put over the windows, bricks are piled outside and the walls need fresh paint.
“Business is booming, the economy is vibrant. It coincides with peace being around the corner, we are more geared towards development,” said Idri, whose casual dress of dark trousers and white T-shirt belie his business acumen.
“Basically what we want to do is instil the sense of saving and credit in our people, who have had no opportunity to empower themselves financially.
“Only a small percentage of people are on a salary. But soon there will be an army, police, civil servants who will take home a pay cheque,” he added.
Idri expects 200 customers in the first few months and has already hired six clerks to handle the work. The bank will deal in U.S. dollars and Kenyan and Ugandan shillings.
As part of an accord on wealth-sharing, the warring factions have agreed that during a six-year interim period that will follow a peace deal two currencies will be officially permitted — the dinar in the north and the pound, a colonial relic still widely offered in the south as a de facto means of exchange.
PRIDE IN THE POUND
There will be one central bank with a southern Sudan branch. The northern operation will be based on the Islamic system of banking where no interest is gained on savings, while the southern system will be based on conventional Western banking.
“It’s a giant step,” Idri said of the anticipated official relaunch of the Sudanese pound. “It instils the sense of nationalism, sovereignty and pride in the people of south Sudan because it symbolises our economic empowerment.”
The word in Rumbek is that freshly printed pound notes are being stockpiled by the SPLA until a peace deal is signed.
Despite Idri’s bullishness, aid workers say any efforts at development can only be cosmetic until a peace deal is signed, unlocking more than $1 billion in international aid.
“Donors are not keen to release any money until there’s a deal. It’s an incentive for peace — to say you have to sign on the dotted line before you get the goodies,” said Chris Porter, U.N. area coordinator based in Rumbek.
“The donors have a point — what is the point of investing if it’s going to get destroyed? We’re remaining almost on an emergency mode.”