Weekly Press Columns Digest
12 April, 2020
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) — High expectations were upheld by many Sudanese officials and ordinary for an avalanche of a European support to the Sudan after the downfall of former President Omar al-Beshir and his regime, but those hopes turned out to be false as assistance of small figures were until now declared by a few European states, including Germany and France besides the European Union (EU), said Mahfouz Abdin in a column carried by Al-Sudani Aldauliyyah daily newspaper of Sunday.
Exchanged visits by high-ranking officials of the two sides further raised the hopes for an extensive European assistance that would help provide solutions to the Sudan's economic crises but the declared small figures of assistance were disappointing to the Sudanese people, said Abdin.
But counting on assistance by Europe was a big mistake as, according to the columnist, is not easy to offer such support as it has to be passed by the legislature of each individual European nation.
The high hopes and the rosy image of Europe that the Continent could salvage the Sudan from its problems became gloomy and hopeless, bearing in mind the failure by the European Union to turn up in support of Italy, the EU member nation, in the difficulties the latter faced as a result of the current Covid-19 pandemic.
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Columnist Hanady al-Siddeik devoted in a column published by Aljareedah daily newspaper of Monday to writing about a senior official of the "dissolved" National Congress Party (NCP) who is still at the head of the Port Sudan branch of the National Standards and Measures Corporation as an evidence of the sluggishness of the government in dismantling and cleansing the government institutions from elements of the defunct regime.
Hanady said the staff of the Standards Corporation demanded the removal of Zakariyya Mohamed Suleiman from the office to which he was appointed by the extinct regime and who, according to the staff as cited by the columnist, has perpetrated several violations, including appointment of tens of his relatives and NCP persons in the Corporation and of sacking qualified staff who were opposed to the ousted regime.
The personnel of the Corporation, in a statement Hanady said she had seen, added that Suleiman spearheaded resistance by the NCP and Islamists against the popular protests that overthrew NCP regime in December Revolution.
The columnist questioned the silence by the transitional government and its committees for dismantling the defunct regime towards this person whose staff demanded his removal from office and bringing him to account for his deeds against the transitional government and for having been a member of the notorious Islamic popular security forces.
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The Ingas crane of empowerment in the 1990s put Al-Tayeb Mustafa, who had no media background whatsoever, on the crest of the Sudan News Agency (SUNA), an important media outlet, as part of the Ingas plans for corruption and oppression, said columnist Abdul Hamid Awad at the outset of a regular column carried by Al-Sudani daily newspaper of Tuesday.
Awad said Mustafa (aka presidential uncle), in crocodile-like tears, shamelessly bewailed a recent government decision to the effect of dismissing Hassan Fadlul Mulah, the general manager of the Blue Nile Satellite television channel, whereas he commenced his work in SUNA with an extensive campaign of firing every journalist who was opposed to his viewpoint and to the guidelines of the ruling regime and every journalist who is committed to the ethics of his profession.
The columnist cited two journalists, namely Al-Zain Yahya and Mohamed Ali Saeed, who were among those sacked by Mustafa basically for political reasons.
The presidential uncle demanded Yahya to abide by a literal translation of the official Ingas revolution command council while the journalist politely said, instead, it should properly be called the ruling military junta because he argued that the English language readers prefer a straightforward language.
Getting furious, Mustafa hurried to the Council of Ministers and returned with a letter of dismissal and, apparently on a tip from him, Yahya was collected by Security agents at SUNA gate and immediately taken away to the ghost-house for two months of torture a video of which was transmitted to international human rights bodies, Awad said, adding that the journalist had to travel to Saudi Arabia to earn a living for his family and a few years later, he returned home with paralysis he is still suffering from.
The columnist said the second journalist was Mohamed Ali Mohamed Saeed who was sacked over a news report quoting former Islamist speaker Mohamed Al-Amin Khalifa as saying his government managed to neutralize Kenya that stopped its support to the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), raising a protest by the Kenyan embassy here.
A council of enquiry chaired by then deputy general manager Ni'mat Bilal ruled that Khalifa was correctly quoted by Saeed who showed the council a recording tape of the speaker's statement at the press conference.
However, Awad said the acquittal was apparently not satisfactory to Mustafa who also rushed to the Council of Ministers and came back with a letter of dismissal of Saeed who joined SUNA in 1970, with the columnist noting it was when Mustafa was in the first stage of schooling.
If he possesses a molecule of shame and abashment, Mustafa has to shun talking about the sacking of the BN television manager because what he had done in SUNA was much graver than what happened to Fadlul Mulah.
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Columnist Ramzy al-Misry, in a column that appeared on Altahrir online newspaper of Wednesday, asked the Minister of Energy whether he had taken or would take any legal measure against a journalist who, according to Ramzy, wrote on a local newspaper a news report ridiculing the Minister and putting in his mouth an ironic statement about oil ships in Port Sudan awaiting money to unload the fuel.
The report was astounding and exciting and was harmful to the country's economy and image as it was full of sarcasm against the government and its economic difficulties, said the columnist.
The only action that was taken by the Ministry of Energy was a statement denying the statement that was attributed to the Minister but the statement was too late to remove the public effect of the report while nothing was taken against the reporter and his newspaper that continued normally as if they had done nothing, Ramzy said.
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Columnist Shamail al-Nour, in her regular column that was published by Altayyar daily newspaper of Thursday, has noted that the vast lands of the Gezira State, central Sudan, which used to achieve self-sufficiency and a surplus for export in such agricultural products as wheat, sorghum and cotton, was devastated and turned by the defunct Ingas regime into a wasteland and the farmer was turned from a producer into a consumer and ultimately quitted his job.
The former Ingas regime neglected the Gezira Scheme, the backbone of the country's economy, and focused on the oil that was discovered in the early 1990s, earning about 70% of the public treasury and filling the pockets of the Ingas officials and leaders of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP); but when South Sudan broke away in 2011, the NCP government had nothing to depend on except the customs, taxes and other duties imposed on the people and never thought of returning to agriculture or any other source of public income, said Shamail.
She said the present government should consider agriculture as the sole way out of the current economic difficulties and reinstate the giant Gezira Scheme as well as the faculties of agriculture, bearing in mind the bountiful wheat harvest of the current season of the Scheme.
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Columnist Yusuf al-Sindy, in a column that appeared on Al-Tahrir online of Saturday, has expressed "in principle" a proposal by Health Minister Akrum Mohamed a-Toam for a 24-hour shutdown of the Sudan, or the capital Khartoum, for three weeks, for preventing the spread of the current Corona pandemic.
Such a closure is a top priority as it secures lives, prevents infected people from transmitting the Corona virus to other persons and controls that virus; said Sindy adding that failure for the provision of the living necessities to the poor should not hinder the shutdown measure as, according to the columnist, the Sudanese people are characterized by solidarity of supporting each other.
The columnist suggested that financial support be made available for groups of such marginal jobs as tea woman sellers and vendors.
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