Electricity First: Why It Should Take Priority Over All Other Reconstruction Efforts

Dr Ismail Sati
In his response to my recent article on the collapse of the national currency, Eng. Adel Abdel Fattah Habloug rightly drew my attention to an issue that may be even more urgent than many of the concerns currently occupying public debate: the electricity crisis.
Eng. Adel highlighted a simple yet profoundly important reality: there is scarcely any productive, service, commercial, or residential facility that does not depend on electricity, either directly or indirectly. Factories require it for production, farms depend on it for irrigation, hospitals need it to operate medical equipment, water stations rely on it for pumping, telecommunications networks cannot function without it, and even the most basic commercial, service, and recreational activities are closely tied to a reliable electricity supply.
For this reason, the electricity crisis is not merely a service-delivery issue; it is a crisis that affects every sector of the economy and every aspect of public life.
The war has inflicted extensive damage on Sudan’s electricity infrastructure. The destruction has not been limited to power generation facilities; it has also affected substations, transmission lines, and distribution networks. These components form an interconnected system in which no single part can perform effectively in isolation from the others.
Public discussion often focuses on the volume of electricity available for generation. However, the immediate challenge is that significant portions of the transmission and transformation network have been destroyed or severely degraded. As a result, delivering electricity to consumers has become a challenge no less important than generating it in the first place.
As the state regains control over large parts of the country and citizens gradually return to their communities while economic activities resume, electricity demand has risen rapidly. At the same time, generation capacity and transmission networks continue to suffer from the consequences of war. This highlights a paradox many overlook: every success in reconstruction, population return, and economic recovery increases electricity demand, even as the capacity to supply it remains constrained. Consequently, the gap between supply and demand continues to widen.
From a systems-thinking perspective, investment in electricity should not be viewed as a burden on public finances or a drain on scarce foreign currency reserves. Rather, it should be regarded as one of the most productive investments available to the national economy.
Rehabilitating thermal power plants, transmission lines, and substations indeed requires substantial financial and foreign exchange resources, both of which may be limited under current conditions. However, it is equally true that failing to make these investments will cost the economy far more in the future.
Every factory forced to suspend operations due to power outages results in lower production, fewer exports, and fewer jobs. Every agricultural project that cannot secure irrigation faces reduced output and a higher import bill. Every enterprise compelled to rely on private generators imposes additional costs on the economy and increases dependence on imported fuel.
In other words, expenditure on electricity should not be seen as consumption of foreign currency; it is an investment that helps generate and preserve foreign exchange in the future by increasing production and reducing imports.
Accordingly, the priorities of the post-war recovery period should not be confined to rebuilding buildings and physical facilities. They must also encompass the reconstruction of the strategic infrastructure upon which the entire economy depends. Electricity stands at the forefront of that infrastructure.
The rehabilitation of damaged thermal power stations, the maintenance of substations, the reconstruction of major transmission lines, the modernisation of distribution networks, and the expansion of solar and renewable energy projects should all form part of an urgent national economic recovery programme.
Moreover, such a programme must be integrated with plans to rehabilitate the Al-Jaili Refinery, develop the petroleum sector, and modernise transport infrastructure, railways, and ports. These sectors together constitute an interconnected system whose components are inseparable from one another.
In Sudan, we have become accustomed to addressing crises through a firefighting approach: solving the most urgent problem today and moving on to the next one tomorrow. Yet states are not built in this manner.
Electricity is not an expenditure item that can be postponed until conditions improve. It is a fundamental prerequisite for improving conditions in the first place.
For that reason, I believe the question is no longer whether Sudan can afford to rebuild its electricity sector. The real question has become:
Can Sudan afford not to rebuild it?

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