The politics of seaports privatization and corruption schemes in Sudan

Ibrahim Onour
Professor of Economics
University of Khartoum

In 2017, just before the collapse of the former ruling regime of Omar Bashir the government signed a secret deal with United Arab Emirate company for privitazation of the countries principal seaport of Port Sudan. As the public protest against the government was already rising by the end of 2017, the government decided to abandon the deal in an attempt to defuse the public uprise. But a few months latter after the regime was toppled, and the transitional government of the revolution took control of the government, the UAE displayed strong influence on the new government too, via its close ties with the Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, the new military rulers and key Sudanese business tycoon, Osama Daood, who gave strong support to the public uprise that changed Bashir government. Then again, UAE, rolled back the issue of seaports privatization under the transitional government, which took steps to hand over control of the country’s principal seaport to a company owned by the UAE, a move that incensed port workers who defyed the government’s suspicious corrupt deal, and threatened to close the country’s only national port of Port Sudan. An official in Sudan, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated at that time, the government was in the process of securing a deal with UAE giant Dubai Ports World. The agreement would allow the logistics company to run the South Port Container Terminal at Port Sudan for unknown period of time without disclosing any details about the underlying contract agreement. To secure the deal, the company reportedly hired a former Israeli intelligence officer, Ari Ben-Menashe, to lobby on its behalf for support from the United States government in its bid to operate Sudan’s largest terminal. Al-Monitor reported in January 2020, that Dubai Ports World signed a “5 million US dollar contract – of which 1.5 US million dollar was paid up front- with Ari Ben-Menashe and his Montreal based Dickens & Madson” to lobby Sudan for a 20 year concession. The report added that Ben-Menashe said he developed “deep connections” with Sudanese officials, thanks to a controversial lobbying deal with General Mohamad Hamdan Daglo, the country’s former de facto military ruler. In October 2021, after the prime Minister Hamdok, civilian government was ousted by the military ruler Borhan, the president of sovereign Council, the military government signed a secret new deal with UAE, that allows UAE to build a new port, Abu-Omama, at 189 kilometers north of Port Sudan. The idea was, to avoid political risk for the government, resulting from public outcry, to abandon the old concession on Port Sudan Port, and establish a new well equipped port on modern basis, connecting red sea with land locked countries in Central Africa. Again the new deal of Abu-Omama port also kept a secret and no one in the country knows any details about the concession agreement, except Borhan, the country military ruler and his aides including the same business tycoon.
It is not the first time the UAE has set its eyes on ports on the African continent. It has been working to control terminals in the horn of Africa in recent years, with reports that DP World secured contracts in Somalia and Djibouti.

Not only in African seaports, the UAE influence extend to control other international seaports.
The recent controversy over the DP World bid for running a US port brought attention to the creeping privatization schemes of ports world wide.
The issue of UAE attempt to capture a US port hit a raw nerve, when Representative Harold Ford (D Tennessee) ) captured the fearful mood when he announced “the president Bush wants to sell Baltimore port and five others to UAE, a country that had diplomatic ties with the Taliban, the home of two 9/11 hijackers, and whose banks wired money to the terrorists”.
The UAE company, Dubai Ports World (DPW) had worked in tandem with British company, P&O ports senior vice resident to obtain the contract to run cargo terminals in Bsltimore. Mark Montgomery, P&O senior vice president of East Cost operations explained” we were a little naive about the way American politics works “