Sudan weighs the cost of return of the pound
Friday, 15 June 2007
Barney Jopson
Juggling a mixture of notes in their hands and a jumble of zeroes in their heads, Sudanese are getting to grips with a rebirth of the pound.
The new currency is replacing the dinar across a country the size of western Europe, one small part of efforts to bring an end to a catastrophic conflict that has ravaged Sudan's people for much longer than government-incited killing in Darfur in the west.
For three-quarters of Sudan's life, since it gained independence from the UK and Egypt in 1956, the predominantly Arab north and the non-Muslim south have been at war. A landmark comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) signed in January 2005 put an end to the fighting by offering the marginalised south a referendum on independence in 2011. The new currency was a concession to southerners but at the same time, part of northern attempts to create a sense of national unity.
Relations between north and south remain fraught and many other aspects of the peace deal have not been implemented as envisaged.
The new pound, which is worth 1,000 dinar or $0.50 and bears no relation to the UK currency, has been creeping across the Sudan's flat northern deserts and through the tangled forests of the fertile south since it was introduced in January.
The dinar will cease to be legal tender at the end of this month and many southerners will bid it good riddance. One official from the south who is now among many in the central government says: "The dinar during the [north-south] war was seen as reflecting one culture. The CPA recognised Sudan is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multireligious country and the new pound reflects that."
Different forms of dinar are used in Algeria, Iraq and Jordan among other places, but the word is derived from denarius, a Roman currency.
Awad Abu Shouk, manager of the issuing department at the Central Bank of Sudan, says: "The southerners say the dinar is an Islamic currency. But it is not an Arab or Islamic currency. It is Gregorian. But if it is a problem, we can change it."
This is not Sudan's first experience of pounds. The dinar has only been around since 1992 when it was introduced by the hardline Islamic government of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is still in power today. Before that the country was using pounds, but the newly minted notes and coins are not the same: one new pound is worth 10,000 of the old ones.
It is a recipe for confusion in the capital Khartoum. The number of dinar circulating in parallel with the new pound is falling. The central bank says 70 per cent have already been changed. Yet Sudanese continue to think and quote prices in dinar or old pounds, rather than the new currency.
A cashier at the UAE Exchange Centre tells customers $300 converts to "60,000" without mentioning dinar as the unit, then hands them new pound notes that add up to 600. And a waitress seeking to clarify things at the Hilton Hotel cafe waves a new 10 pound note in one hand and a 1,000 dinar note in the other and says: "This 100 pounds. This 100 pounds."
Views on the new currency are mixed in the country's biggest market, the Omdurman souk in western Khartoum, where the crisscrossing streets are choked with dust, donkey carts and tuk-tuk taxis.
Selling spices from giant bowls is Omar Bushra. "Sometimes it's a problem," he says of the change. "I think the dinar is better. It's easy. But the people in the south want the pound."
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FT Syndication Service
Juggling a mixture of notes in their hands and a jumble of zeroes in their heads, Sudanese are getting to grips with a rebirth of the pound.
The new currency is replacing the dinar across a country the size of western Europe, one small part of efforts to bring an end to a catastrophic conflict that has ravaged Sudan's people for much longer than government-incited killing in Darfur in the west.
For three-quarters of Sudan's life, since it gained independence from the UK and Egypt in 1956, the predominantly Arab north and the non-Muslim south have been at war. A landmark comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) signed in January 2005 put an end to the fighting by offering the marginalised south a referendum on independence in 2011. The new currency was a concession to southerners but at the same time, part of northern attempts to create a sense of national unity.
Relations between north and south remain fraught and many other aspects of the peace deal have not been implemented as envisaged.
The new pound, which is worth 1,000 dinar or $0.50 and bears no relation to the UK currency, has been creeping across the Sudan's flat northern deserts and through the tangled forests of the fertile south since it was introduced in January.
The dinar will cease to be legal tender at the end of this month and many southerners will bid it good riddance. One official from the south who is now among many in the central government says: "The dinar during the [north-south] war was seen as reflecting one culture. The CPA recognised Sudan is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multireligious country and the new pound reflects that."
Different forms of dinar are used in Algeria, Iraq and Jordan among other places, but the word is derived from denarius, a Roman currency.
Awad Abu Shouk, manager of the issuing department at the Central Bank of Sudan, says: "The southerners say the dinar is an Islamic currency. But it is not an Arab or Islamic currency. It is Gregorian. But if it is a problem, we can change it."
This is not Sudan's first experience of pounds. The dinar has only been around since 1992 when it was introduced by the hardline Islamic government of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is still in power today. Before that the country was using pounds, but the newly minted notes and coins are not the same: one new pound is worth 10,000 of the old ones.
It is a recipe for confusion in the capital Khartoum. The number of dinar circulating in parallel with the new pound is falling. The central bank says 70 per cent have already been changed. Yet Sudanese continue to think and quote prices in dinar or old pounds, rather than the new currency.
A cashier at the UAE Exchange Centre tells customers $300 converts to "60,000" without mentioning dinar as the unit, then hands them new pound notes that add up to 600. And a waitress seeking to clarify things at the Hilton Hotel cafe waves a new 10 pound note in one hand and a 1,000 dinar note in the other and says: "This 100 pounds. This 100 pounds."
Views on the new currency are mixed in the country's biggest market, the Omdurman souk in western Khartoum, where the crisscrossing streets are choked with dust, donkey carts and tuk-tuk taxis.
Selling spices from giant bowls is Omar Bushra. "Sometimes it's a problem," he says of the change. "I think the dinar is better. It's easy. But the people in the south want the pound."
.......................................
FT Syndication Service