Border harassment besets Sudanese trading in South Sudan
Sudanese traders working in Unity State, one of the five states bordering Sudan, told The Niles that Sudanese border guards demand exorbitant bribes before allowing them to carry their goods into South Sudan.
Bushar Abuokhar has been selling flour, salt and sugar in Unity State for more than a year. Despite high demand for his goods from local shop keepers, he says his business is impeded by Sudanese checkpoints, both real and fake.
They craft numerous checkpoints, making us traders to undergo losses.”
At Sudanese border there are a group of people who create illegal check points in Sudan, and these are Sudanese officials. They craft numerous checkpoints, making us traders to undergo losses,” Abuokhar said.
If traders refuse to pay the illegal fees, which can be as much as 1,000 US Dollars, security officials can beat them or worse, he said.
Most traders try to find routes to smuggle goods into South Sudan to avoid paying fees.
Sudanese traders make up about 90 percent of traders in Unity State and also play an important economic role elsewhere in South Sudan.
For more than a decade, Hamed Zow Mohamed has been trading in Bentiu, a town near the border where hundreds of Sudanese arrive to sell their goods every week. As well as costly border fees, he said South Sudan’s independence in July 2011 created new bureaucratic hurdles.
Here in the state we face continued charges for immigration and for renewal of our passports,” he said, adding that they have to pay 305 South Sudanese Pounds (about 100 US Dollars) every six months for a passport.
Traders without a passport have to pay 100 South Sudanese Pounds every month to stay in South Sudan.
He urged authorities in Khartoum and Juba to allow traders to move back and forth across the border more easily and with fewer fees. Not only will it make it easier for the traders,” he said, but it will also mean they can bring the costs down on their goods.”
