The Sudanese government expected to solve the bread crisis in the next three days as people continued to wait in line outside bakeries.
According to official figures, Sudan consumes 2.5 million tons of wheat annually, 800,000 tons of which are produced locally.
The bread crisis has been ongoing for over a month due to the government’s inability to buy essential supplies that meet the basic needs of citizens such as wheat and fuel.
Sudan's ruling National Congress Party (NCP) recently took several measures in the presence of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to resolve the crisis and end the crisis which threatens the citizens' food security.
NCP’s economic sector formed a committee to study arrangements that ensure the arrival of bread subsidy to its beneficiaries and end subsidized wheat smuggling.
The crisis, which almost led to cases of famine, could diminish within the next 72 hours, according to a source.
The NCP and its economic agencies have begun to prepare a medium-term plan to raise local wheat production and meet all other challenges such as getting fertilizers and pesticides, encouraging farmers to reach self-sufficiency in wheat production and increasing the strategic storage of wheat in the country.
The mills representative indicated that flour was available in bakeries, however, production was affected by the shortage of workers during holidays.
Asharq Al-Awsat toured several bakeries in the neighborhoods of Omdurman in the capital Khartoum where people are still waiting in queues to buy bread. All twenty-eight states of the country are suffering from shortage as bakery owners were forced to cut down on their share of flour by 30 percent in the last period, saying it is barely enough for four days a week.
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning announced that it was increasing subsidies of a sack of flour from 100 to 250 Sudanese pounds. Prior to that, a Russian ship loaded with wheat arrived at Port Sudan.
The ministry demanded that bakeries increase their daily production to exceed 100,000 sacks to cover the needs of the capital and other states.
Security authorities and popular forces called for taking precautions to maintain the subsidized wheat and prevent smuggling.
The government is also in dispute with the country’s largest flour supplier Sayga Flour Mills, owned by prominent businessman Osama Daoud, according to sources at the Sudanese companies that import flour.
Added to the exacerbating flour crisis is a shortage of foreign exchange currency at the Central Bank of Sudan, which recently had to borrow from some commercial banks to cover the country's needs.
Sudan’s Bakeries Union announced that bakeries received their flour quota, which indicates the crisis will be over soon. In the statement, the Union’s Sec-Gen Badreldin El-Jalal urged authorities to overcome the obstacles facing 42 mills in Khartoum to cover the state’s needs of flour, which amounts to 45,000 sacks daily.
The government supports the wheat commodity by $500 million every three months, but this does not go entirely to its beneficiaries. Wheat and flour smuggling operations are on the rise in the country. Also, frequent power outages affected production at mills by 60 percent.
Inflation in the country had reached about 64 percent in July, according to official figures.
In October, the United States lifted economic sanctions imposed on Khartoum. The decision was expected to have a positive impact, but the economy did not benefit, according to Sudanese officials, because international banks still refrain from dealing with Sudanese banks.
