The Financial Crisis in Sudan: Between the Path of Reform and the Fate of the Revolution

By: Murtada Al-Qasm Awad Al-Karim. The financial crisis currently gripping Sudan is not a fleeting one, but a critical juncture that will determine its fate—politically, economically, and in terms of security—depending on the nature of the government's responses and the seriousness of their implementation. Unlike previous crises, this one is neither emergency-based nor imported; it cannot be solved by rising prices, nor ended by the cessation of a war. It is a political crisis par excellence; its roots are political, and its cure is political. Its solution is internal—purely Sudanese—neither imported nor borrowed, but rather seized through difficult and painful decisions that Sudanese people must reconcile upon and commit to collectively. There is no economy without rational politics, and no rational politics without a productive economy; they are two wings without which the nation cannot fly. If this crisis remains without a real, non-patchwork solution and without radical, non-palliative treatment, it will add economic resentment to the political discontent that ignited the 2018 protests. When the hunger of bellies meets the anger of hearts, and the lack of solutions meets the dead-end of the horizon, the fuel for the revolution will be complete, and its fuse will be lit. In a country like Sudan, where weapons are as widespread as fire in dry straw, where the state is as weak as a sickly body, and where the rule of law and its enforcement are in retreat, the revolution will not be just chants. It will be blood spilled, chaos spreading, prolonged fragmentation, irreparable tearing, and a collapse from which the nation may never recover. This crisis is the logical result and the inevitable end of the rentier state—a state where the people do not create their wealth through the sweat of their brows and the toil of their hands, but instead lean upon what lies beneath the ground, controlled by a group that distributes it based on an equation of power, nepotism, and appeasement. The rentier state in Sudan began early, then deteriorated into a tax-collection state, where its sustenance comes from the citizen's pocket and its revenue from the laborer's sweat. It levies taxes that exhaust the soil and the descendants, with local governments that neither resolve nor bind, focused only on extracting from the poor and chasing market vendors instead of serving and assisting them. To exit this dark tunnel, a package of radical reforms is necessary: First: A comprehensive national reconciliation that excludes no one, a reconciliation that unites, heals, turns the page on grudges, and opens a page of glory—no exclusion or revenge, but rather justice, fairness, forgiveness, and tolerance. Second: Criminalizing racism, regionalism, and nepotism by law; no tribalism or regionalism, no favoritism or nepotism. The law is above all, the homeland is for all, and citizenship is the foundation and the balance. Third: Striking corruption with an iron fist, whether small or large, and exposing the corrupt without fear of media or the blame of critics; corruption is a betrayal of trust, bribery is a fall of morality, and embezzlement is a crime against a nation stricken and wronged by its own children. Fourth: A radical reform of education. We need productive, not sterile, education, and sound, not sick, understanding. Education that aligns with the country's nature and the people's needs, graduating farmers, makers, traders, and programmers, not lines of confused, unemployed youth. Fifth: Dismantling bureaucracy and building a lean government apparatus—a light, fast device that serves rather than obstructs, facilitates rather than complicates, gives rather than takes, and builds rather than demolishes. Sixth: Restructuring collapsed sectors from the roots: Restructuring the electricity sector and opening the door for private investment to light homes and power factories. Restructuring the health sector to treat the sick and bandage the wounded. Restructuring roads and bridges to connect the peripheries to the center and transport goods from the countryside to the city. Restructuring the police force to become a fully civil, service-oriented apparatus that protects the citizen rather than terrorizing them, and serves the people rather than whipping them. Seventh: And this is the most important—a real financial reform: stopping the printing of unbacked currency, as it is a legalized theft of the citizen's pocket. Unifying the exchange rate and ending market plurality. Ensuring the Ministry of Finance's authority over all public funds. Supporting production rather than consumption, and supporting agriculture and industry rather than subsidizing bread and fuel. Digital transformation of tax collection to prevent leakage and bribery, for every pound paid electronically cannot be stolen. The financial crisis in its essence is not a crisis of the pound and the dollar, but a crisis of conscience and the dinar, a crisis of morals before it is a crisis of markets, and a crisis of integrity before it is a crisis of subsidies. If the conscience is sound, the pocket will be sound; if souls are upright, finances will be upright; and if the shepherd is righteous, the flock will be righteous. No nation is lost except through the loss of the morals of its people.