Six Sudanese states have gone into complete darkness since the beginning of this November due to the federal government’s inability to pay financial dues to the Turkish “Koni O Simi” company, which operates the power stations in those states.
Citizens of southern, eastern, northern and western Darfur and South Kordofan states, along with the Red Sea State, found themselves in a real power outage crisis without prior warning.
As some of the capitals of the aforementioned states have witnessed a complete absence due to their main dependence on the generators of the Turkish company, while some areas have been partially affected, such as the capital of West Darfur State, which has other generators that produce a third of its total power needs
The governments of those states were quick to issue official statements explaining the scale of the crisis on the one hand and hinting at the problems that the repercussions of the lack of electrical current may cause in states, most of which are affected by fragile security situation.
The Turkish “Koni” company had addressed the power stations in the cities in which it operates on October 25, saying that it will stop working in early November due to the government’s inability to pay its financial debts, totaling more than 20 million dollars.
In 2017, the Sudanese government signed a contract with the Turkish company to supply thermal generating stations to a number of Sudanese cities.
Wording of the contract, which state governments after the December revolution described as a flawed contract with suspicions of great corruption.
The contract stipulates that the electricity producing company sells to the Sudanese government at an amount of 70 billion pounds per month, while the government sells it for less than 4 billion pounds to the citizen, which leads to the accumulation of monthly debts on the government.
The Governor of South Darfur, Musa Mahdi Ishaq, said in statements on Sunday that the Turkish company that supplies the city of Nyala has almost completely cut off the electricity supply to the city of Nyala.
“Now the city is completely dark, and this cut-off has resulted in great suffering for the citizens, especially in hospitals and water” Musa Mahdi added.
He explained that when he visited the Turkish company’s premises, be acquainted with suffering the company faces in recovering financial dues from the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The governor said that the state capital, Nyala, suffers from great security conditions due to the spread of the disease, adding that this problem will increase crimes and chaos and the deaths of children and the needy.
Although the city of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State, lived in complete darkness on Sunday night, the state government remained silent, and did not issue any official statement expressing its resentment or opinion about the power outage in the city, which is still suffering from the ravages of war and the spread of the culture of violence and looting.
Meanwhile, Darfur 24 obtained testimonials from the representative of the Turkish company in the city of El Geneina, Muna Shankel, despite his insistence that he is not authorized to speak to the media.
He said that there is a contract between the company and the Ministry of Electricity that was signed in March of 2017, to be renewed annually.
“The Ministry of Electricity did not pay the company two months ‘dues, so the company became unable to pay employees’ salaries, provide spare parts, and transportation” Muna added.
In the same regard, the governor of East Darfur, Muhammad Issa Aliyo, said in a statement that the state government has no hand in the power outage in the city of Da’en, the capital of the st, but rather circumstances and realistic reasons dictated it, which the government inherited from the previous regime as a result of mismanagement.
Meanwhile, citizens in a number of cities supplied by Turkish companies with electricity demanded that the government search for drastic solutions to the endmic problem.