Sudanese officials in the Transitional Government and signatories of the peace agreement have repeatedly responded that the “cost of war was greater than the cost of peace” whenever confronted with questioned about the financial obligations of the Juba peace agreement.
Sudan is suffering from a poor economy and the government is failing to provide basic needs, such as bread, fuel and medicine.
It remains to be seen what will happen if Khartoum fails to meet its financial obligations, estimated at tens of billions of dollars.
According to the October 3 peace agreement, the government will commit to paying $750 million annually for ten years for a Darfur peace fund alone. It will provide $100 million a month after the signing of the agreement and dedicate 40 percent of local revenues from Darfur for the region for the next 10 years.
Last week, acting Finance Minister Hiba Mohammed Ali said implementing peace requires some $7.5 billion for the next ten years. She stressed that her ministry will work on raising the resources through the general budget, regional and international financial institutions and friends and partners of Sudan, as well as coordination with the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS).
The Sudanese economy is suffering from a crisis that has led to the sharp deterioration of the currency, which is trading at around 55 pounds to the dollar and more than 250 pounds on the black market.
Inflation has also soared to 166.83 percent in August, compared to 143.78 in July.
These factors have led to a shortage and hike in prices of basic commodities, such as bread, wheat flour, fuel, cooking gas, medicine and others.
Khartoum’s foreign debt has also reached about $60 billion.
To confront these challenges, Sudan declared an economic state of emergency, setting up special courts to prosecute what officials called a “systematic operation” to ruin the economy.
