Sudan to revert to pound as legal tender

KHARTOUM, Feb 19 (AFP) — Sudan said Saturday it will revert to using the pound as legal tender, abandoning the dinar that the government adopted in an effort to put an Islamic face on the currency in the mid-1990s.

Central Bank governor Sabir Mohamed al-Hassan made the announcement after a joint committee of delegates from the government and the Sudan Liberation Movement agreed on the issue at a meeting in Kenya.

Khartoum and the SPLM signed a peace agreement in Nairobi last month ending more than two decades of civil war between southern and northern Sudan, the longest-running conflict in Africa.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Arab and Muslim north shall have an Islamic-based monetary system and the mainly animist and Christian south, a Western system regulated by a central bank in the south.

Southerners rejected the dinar due to its perceived Islamic character and said they wanted a currency that reflects the country’s cultural and historical diversities.

Hassan told the official SUNA news agency that the joint committee in Kenya would continue its meetings with the aim of determining the value, design and features of the new currency.

The dinar is equivalent to 100 Sudanese pounds and is officially pegged at 2,500 dinars to the dollar.