The Face of Truth: Electricity… Decision-Making Chaos and the Erosion of Trust

Ibrahim Shaghlawi

Citizens were surprised on Friday, according to what was reported by Al-Tayyar Newspaper, by major increases in electricity tariffs reaching approximately 72%, without any announcement being issued by the competent authorities, while the first package rose from 4,000 to 7,000 pounds, the second from 5,000 to 9,000, and the third from 6,000 to 11,000 pounds.

At the same time, citizens confirmed that the usual recharge value no longer grants them more than half of the electricity units they previously received, in a practical indication of the scale of the transformation that has occurred in the service and its cost.

Under normal circumstances, such a decision might be interpreted as an economic measure linked to operating costs in light of currency deterioration and the rise of the dollar, or declining subsidies, production, and distribution—considerations familiar to all countries facing financial pressures or structural imbalances in the energy sector.

But today, Sudan does not live under normal circumstances, given the war that has exhausted infrastructure, depleted resources, and forced millions of citizens to redefine the priorities of daily life. In such a context, service-related decisions no longer become merely financial decisions, but rather transform into political messages carrying complete meaning.

The issue here, as I would like to clarify, is not the increase alone, regardless of how harsh it may be on a society living under the pressure of inflation, declining incomes, and shrinking economic activity, but rather in the way the decision reached the people.

The citizen did not hear about it through an official statement or a press conference, did not receive an explanation from the electricity holding company, and did not find a government discourse explaining the necessities, presenting the figures, or placing the decision within its technical and economic context. Rather, they discovered it at the moment of recharge, in front of the meter screen. This is not merely a media gap and poor management, but rather a profound indicator of a crisis in the philosophy of managing and delivering services.

In political science, the strength of the state is not measured only by its ability to make decisions, but by its ability to generate acceptance around them.

Acceptance is not imposed by law alone, but is built through trust. And trust, in times of wars and crises, is considered a strategic resource no less important than foreign currency, fuel, wheat reserves, or even the management of war. When institutions begin making decisions that affect citizens’ daily lives without transparency or explanation, they are not merely repricing a service, but are—without realizing it—re-engineering their relationship with society.

More alarming is that this increase did not come within the context of improvement in service, expansion in supply, stability in the grid, or an announced rehabilitation program.

Rather, it came while electricity itself remains one of the most complained-about issues on a daily basis: outages lasting for long hours, continuous fluctuations in current, household and commercial losses due to damaged appliances, and disruption of small productive activities upon which thousands of families depend for survival. Here, the question that forms in the citizen’s mind becomes entirely legitimate: why should I pay more for less service?

Yet the paradox that is difficult to ignore remains: how does the cost rise while the actual ability to benefit from the service declines? This is the daily feeling taking shape inside homes, in markets, in clinics, and in workshops that depend on electricity to continue. A recurring feeling that the citizen is being asked to pay more in exchange for a less stable reality, weaker reassurance, and greater fragility, making the decision in people’s consciousness go beyond being an administrative measure to becoming a direct test of the balance in the relationship between the state and society.

In the literature of developmental media, the citizen is viewed as a partner in bearing the cost of reform, not merely a recipient of decisions. Partnership is not built through surprises, but through information. It is not managed through ambiguity, but through transparency.

Many experiences in post-conflict countries have proven that societies can endure even harsher decisions if they feel that someone is addressing them with respect, explaining the magnitude of the crisis, and presenting a clear picture of the costs, outcomes, and alternatives.

But when information is absent, rumors of corruption fill the vacuum. And when explanation is absent, every reform step—no matter how necessary—turns into material for anger, suspicion, and interpretation. When this condition is repeated, it is not only the image of the service institution that falls, but the very idea of the state itself as a trusted reference.

The electricity administration may have its technical and financial justifications, and perhaps the war has imposed a new reality that cannot be bypassed without revising the tariff. This is a possible, and even understandable, scenario. But even economically sound decisions can turn into political mistakes if they are presented in the wrong way. Herein lies the danger of what happened.

What is happening in the energy sector, according to #Face_of_Truth, does not only expose weakness in the management of the electricity file, but opens a larger question about how the state is managing its crises at this pivotal stage—is it failure, lack of expertise, or poor management? Institutions do not lose people’s trust all at once; they lose it gradually, with every unexplained decision.

Stay well and in good health.

Monday, May 4, 2026

Shglawi55@gmail.com