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.
