Transcript

Just going back to the impact of secession of South Sudan on the political scene in Khartoum, in addition to the difficult task the government had to face in terms of balancing the economic books-- in terms of generating new economic resources from over-taxation, for most treaty measures, from looking, also, for assistance from abroad-- there were also the task of the balancing political alliances. This, at the time, also, the government had moved away from the Iran axis, coming closer to the Arab-Saudi-led coalitions all with the hope of receiving economic assistance that would somehow alleviate the hard economic situation felt as the result of the secession of South Sudan and loss of oil revenue. But, again, this had not materialised and did not lead to the scale of economic assistance that the government had hoped for. So economic hardships actually continued and the government also tried, somehow, to manoeuvre around but still, situation economic situation in Sudan is very dire and very hard for the people to cope with.