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Sudanese President Bashir dissolves government, appoints new PM

PresidentOmaral-Bashirdissolved the Sudanese government on Sunday and named a new prime minister, moves aimed at fixing a crisis-hit economy battered in recent months by shortages of bread, fuel and hard currency.Bashirnamed Motazz Moussa as the country's prime minister. He replaces Bakri Hassan Saleh, who was appointed in 2017 as the country's first prime minister sinceBashircame to power in 1989.

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by REUTERS

Big-read22 January 2019 - 19:31
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Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir speaks during a press conference after the oath of the prime minister and first vice president Bakri Hassan Saleh at the palace in Khartoum, Sudan, March 2, 2017. REUTERS

President

Omar

al-Bashir

dissolved the Sudanese government on Sunday and named a new prime minister, moves aimed at fixing a crisis-hit economy battered in recent months by shortages of bread, fuel and hard currency.

Bashir

named Motazz Moussa as the country's prime minister. He replaces Bakri Hassan Saleh, who was appointed in 2017 as the country's first prime minister since

Bashir

came to power in 1989.

Moussa had been serving as minister of irrigation and electricity before the government was dissolved.

Saleh, who had been serving as both prime minister and vice

president

before the shake-up, will stay on in the newly created post of first vice

president, while Osman Yusuf Kubur was appointed second vice

president.

The announcement came just after

Bashir

called an emergency meeting of ruling party officials in the

presidential

palace on the back of growing economic concerns over price rises and shortages.

No other ministerial

appointments were announced, but the number of ministries in the new government will be slashed to 21 from 31, a move intended to cut down on spending, National

Congress Party Deputy Chairman Faisal

Hassan told a news conference.

The ministers of foreign affairs, defence and

presidential

affairs will remain in their posts when the new government is formed, Hassan said.

Khartoum has been trying to slash expenditures as it grapples with record high inflation, the hard-currency shortage and growing concern over low levels of liquidity at commercial

banks.

Long queues outside commercial

banks have become a fixture around Khartoum in recent weeks as the liquidity of the local

currency has dwindled and ATMs have been emptied of cash. Daily withdrawal

limits in some places have been set as low as 500 Sudanese pounds ($16.60).

A presidency statement said the latest measures were necessary to solve "the state of distress and frustration faced by the country during the last period".

Sudan's economy has been struggling since the south seceded in 2011, taking with it three-quarters of oil output and depriving Khartoum of a crucial

source of foreign currency.

The lifting of 20-year-old U.S. trade sanctions last year was expected to usher in a more prosperous era for a country that had long been isolated.

But economic woes have only deepened as a black market for U.S. dollars has in effect replaced the formal

banking system, making it more difficult and expensive to import essential

supplies such as wheat.

The dollar has risen to about 47 pounds on the black market in recent months, against an official

rate of about 30 pounds. That helped to push annual

inflation to around 64 percent in July.

A doubling of the price of bread in January, after the government eliminated subsidies, triggered demonstrations.

Sudan has been without a central

bank governor since June, when Hazem Abdelqader died after suffering a heart attack while on a trip to Turkey.

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