Sudanese Pound hits new low, food ‘unaffordable’ in Central Darfur

On Wednesday, foreign currency prices on the parallel market in Khartoum rose again. The Dollar recorded SDG 141. Prices of consumer goods in Central Darfur are skyrocketing.

The price of subsidised bread doubled in Khartoum. People are now paying two Pounds for a small loaf of bread.

In the border town of Um Dukhun in Central Darfur, the price of a loaf of bread jumped to SDG 10. A pound of sugar now costs SDG 60.

“We are experiencing one of the worst waves of high prices ever in the area,” a housewife told Radio Dabanga from Um Dukhun on Wednesday. “I no longer know what to do. We now pay SDG 150 for a bottle of cooking oil. Grinding some kilos of sorghum or millet in the mills in the town costs SDG 40.”

The monthly salary of a ninth-grade employee (who is always a university graduate) is SDG 1,042. An eighth-grade teacher earn around SDG1,300. Workers earn SDG 645 a month.

Activists accuse the authorities of Um Dukhun of corruption.

“The executive director of Um Dukhun locality and the fuel distribution committee are affiliates of the defunct regime of Omar Al Bashir,” a listener explained. “Members of the resistance committees in the neighbourhoods accuse them of acerbating the crisis by smuggling flour across the borders with Chad and the Central African Republic.

USD 1 = SDG 55.1375 at the time of posting. As effective foreign exchange rates can vary in Sudan, Radio Dabanga bases all SDG currency conversions on the daily middle US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS).

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