Voluntary Return — on Foot!

Muhannad Awad Mahmoud
The government is calling on Sudanese people in countries of asylum and across the diaspora to return home. We greatly appreciate the Prime Minister’s decision to take responsibility for the voluntary return portfolio and his directives to remove obstacles facing returnees. However, the success of the return process should not be measured by the number of families crossing the borders and reaching Khartoum and other Sudanese cities. Rather, it should be measured by the more important question: what does a citizen find once they return?
Anyone travelling through the streets of Khartoum and some of the other cities to which residents have returned will discover a crisis whose true scale may not be reflected in official reports: transport has itself become part of the hardship of returning home.
The war did not only destroy homes, factories, electricity grids and water networks; it also wiped out a substantial proportion of the public transport that kept cities moving. Many of the yellow taxis that were once a familiar feature of Khartoum have disappeared, while the number of buses, Hiace minibuses, and other forms of transport people relied on every day has fallen dramatically.
The consequences are visible every morning: students walking long distances or hitching rides to reach their schools; employees and workers waiting for long periods for transport; and families returning to their cities only to discover that getting around has become a daily ordeal.
Can we really ask people to return and then leave them searching for a way to get around?
Some problems cannot be fully understood from inside offices, and the transport crisis in particular is difficult to appreciate from behind the windows of government vehicles. Anyone who wants to understand the reality should stand outside a school in the morning, at a public transport stop, or outside a hospital. Sometimes the street provides a more accurate report than official documents.
For this reason, we appeal directly to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to make an exceptional decision allowing the importation of used public transport vehicles under a temporary customs-duty exemption, subject to clear technical specifications and regulations.
We are not talking about private or luxury cars. We mean buses, minibuses, Hiace vehicles, taxis and other vehicles that would go directly into public transport service.
Nor should such an exemption be viewed merely as revenue forgone by the Treasury. Bringing additional transport vehicles into service increases supply, eases pressure on the transport system, puts drivers back to work, and makes it easier for students, workers and employees to reach their destinations.
Not every customs duty waived represents a loss, and not every customs duty collected represents a gain for the economy.
But a customs exemption alone will not be enough. A returnee from a country of asylum who lost their job and property during the war will, in most cases, still be unable to purchase a bus or taxi even if it is exempt from customs duties.
The government and the Central Bank of Sudan should therefore direct banks to allocate a significant proportion of their microfinance portfolios to financing the purchase of public transport vehicles, with instalments and repayment periods aligned with the income the vehicle generates.
Instead of returning home to search for a job that may not exist, a citizen could own a productive asset that provides income for themselves and their family while also helping solve the transport crisis.
Another avenue is equally important: opening urban transport investment to the private sector.
The government should issue open, transparent tenders inviting specialised companies to import and operate fleets of buses and minibuses within cities, according to specified routes, timetables, technical standards, and service requirements.
Why should we not see private transport companies operating designated routes with organised fleets in Khartoum, Omdurman, Bahri, Wad Madani and other cities, instead of leaving the public transport network dependent on whatever vehicles happen to be available each day?
The state is not required to purchase every bus or operate every route. Its role is to establish policy, regulate the market, encourage competition and monitor service quality.
To prevent the exemption from becoming a back door for the motor vehicle trade, it could be limited to one or two years, with restrictions on vehicle types, age and specifications. The exemption could also be conditional on the vehicle remaining in public transport service for several years, with its sale or conversion to private use prohibited during that period unless the applicable customs duties are paid.
The government would therefore have a clear policy based on three tracks: an exceptional customs-duty exemption for public transport vehicles; microfinance enabling returnees and young people to acquire productive assets; and competitive tenders attracting private companies into urban transport.
This is neither a grant nor charity. This is reconstruction.
Reconstruction is not only about buildings, bridges, electricity and water. A city in which a student cannot reach school, a worker cannot reach the factory, and a patient cannot reach the hospital has not yet returned to life.
Prime Minister, Minister of Finance: take this issue to the streets. Ask students how they get to school, employees how they reach their workplaces, and returning families how they move around their cities. You will then discover that the transport crisis is not a marginal issue, but a genuine obstacle to return and the revival of economic activity.
Real return does not simply mean that a citizen has returned to Sudan. Real return means finding a way around, a job to earn a living, and a city in which to begin life again.
And if we are serious about encouraging Sudanese people to return home, then let us not allow the first thing a returnee discovers after years of war to be that they have returned to their homeland — but must navigate it on foot.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=17041