From the Destruction of War to the Courts over Levies: Who Is Killing What Remains of Sudan’s Economy?

Noaman Yousif Mohammed
When war fails to extinguish the last flame in a factory, levies step in to put it out!
The war in Sudan has not been content with destroying factories, looting warehouses, wrecking infrastructure, severing supply chains and bringing production to a halt. It has inflicted enormous economic losses and deprived thousands of families of their livelihoods. Now, it seems, some authorities are compounding this destruction in other ways: ever-increasing levies, mounting fees, and claims that drag factory owners, companies, and shopkeepers into courts and revenue-collection offices, rather than helping them keep their businesses alive.
What kind of absurdity is this: a factory owner must fight to survive in the market, only to fight again to stay out of court?
Sudanese industry, particularly the pharmaceutical industry, is more than buildings and machinery. It represents investment, expertise, skilled labour, supply chains and national capacity to meet domestic needs and reduce dependence on imports. When these industries stop operating, only their owners suffer. Workers lose their incomes, the state loses revenue, consumers face shortages and rising prices, and the economy becomes increasingly dependent on external sources.
In the pharmaceutical sector, the losses extend beyond commercial considerations, because ending local production affects medicine security and makes medicines harder and more expensive to obtain in a country already exhausted by war.
One would expect state institutions to treat war-damaged enterprises as national assets to be rescued, reviewing levies in a way that accounted for the exceptional circumstances and balanced the state’s right to revenue against the economy’s need to recover. Yet some businesses face demands for business rates, service charges, and cleaning fees despite having suspended operations or operating at only a fraction of their capacity, while struggling to raise working capital and rehabilitate their premises.
The problem here is not any particular fee. It is a mindset that sees an economic enterprise as a ready source of revenue rather than a productive venture that needs protection.
Between Revenue Collection and Economic Recovery
A state that wants to rescue its economy helps damaged enterprises resume operations, reviews their obligations in light of their actual circumstances, simplifies procedures and postpones payments where possible. It can then recover its revenue sustainably once economic activity resumes.
By contrast, demanding that a closed or struggling business meet obligations that take no account of the damage it has suffered, and then forcing it into litigation and collection proceedings, raises a fundamental question: does the local authority want sustainable revenue from a business that can restore its production, or an immediate payment whose price may be the closure of that business and the loss of its jobs?
Collecting revenue is not wrong, and legal obligations do not automatically disappear when war breaks out. However, fiscal justice requires a distinction between an enterprise operating at full capacity, one destroyed by war, another attempting to reopen, and a fourth forced to cease operations altogether. Applying the same procedure to different circumstances is not justice; it is merely formal equality that produces unjust outcomes.
Justice means accounting for differing circumstances within the bounds of the law and using flexibility to protect economic activity rather than obstruct it.
When Business Owners Become Accused Persons
Among the most distressing sights are factory owners, company directors, and shopkeepers who have built businesses, employed people, and supplied goods and services now standing before courts over claims brought by local authorities, or moving from one revenue collection office to another in search of a settlement or exemption. Instead, they should find an administration willing to work with them to identify lawful, practical solutions.
The objection is not to the judiciary or to the state’s right to recover its dues through legitimate means. It is to turning revenue collection into an end in itself, detached from the wider economic interest, and to any practice that exceeds the law or undermines the dignity of business owners.
A factory owner is not an adversary of the state because he produces goods. A trader is not an enemy of the local authority because he requests a review of a claim. A businessperson is not a beggar when asking to be treated fairly. He is a citizen with rights and obligations. While the state demands payment from him, it is also obliged to provide a fair business environment, transparent procedures, and treatment that preserves his dignity.
Measure a local official’s success by the number of businesses that resume operations, the jobs they preserve, and the sustainable revenue generated once economic activity recovers, not by the number of claims, reports, and files referred to the courts. The difference between these two measures is the difference between an administration that develops the economy and one that drains it.
Levies Do Not Build an Economy
A system of levies that ignores a taxpayer’s ability to pay, fails to distinguish between an active business and a closed enterprise, and does not balance immediate revenue against long-term consequences may generate short-term returns. Still, it destroys the very revenue base it will depend on in the future.
A closed factory will not pay business rates on its operations tomorrow. A shuttered shop will not employ a worker, and a company that loses its capacity to invest will neither expand nor create new opportunities. If every local authority seeks to maximise its own revenue independently of economic recovery policies, the result may be a race to divide up the resources of businesses whose ability to survive is steadily diminishing.
Sustainable revenue requires a productive economy. A productive economy requires businesses capable of operating, and those businesses need an environment that encourages them to survive, invest and expand. Reducing the relationship between the state and the private sector to a demand for payment, followed by a notice and a court case, harms both parties, even if it appears to represent a temporary victory for the revenue collection authority.
The Pharmaceutical Industry Must Be a Priority
This approach becomes even more dangerous when it affects the pharmaceutical industry. Sudan, already suffering from disrupted supplies, declining purchasing power, and difficulty securing medicines, cannot afford to lose more industrial capacity because of an administrative environment that fails to distinguish between collecting a legitimate debt and suffocating an enterprise trying to resume production.
What is needed is not an open-ended exemption or the indiscriminate cancellation of the state’s entitlements. Instead, fees and claims must be legally and financially reviewed, with each case’s treatment linked to the nature of the business, the extent of the damage, the duration of the shutdown, and its actual ability to pay. Pharmaceutical enterprises should also be recognised as part of the health and economic security system, with relevant authorities coordinating to remove obstacles and establish reasonable arrangements for outstanding obligations.
It makes little sense to talk about localising pharmaceutical production when domestic manufacturers must first fight revenue-collection authorities before they can restore production capacity.
What Needs to Be Done?
First, conduct a comprehensive review of local levies imposed on war-damaged enterprises to verify their legal basis, prevent duplication and overlapping charges, and cancel claims that have no foundation in law.
Second, stop treating closed or damaged enterprises as though they were operating under normal conditions. Establish and publish clear criteria for classifying businesses by the extent of damage, their stage of recovery, and their ability to pay.
Third, freeze or reschedule claims that can be settled during recovery periods, in accordance with the law, while giving priority to enterprises capable of resuming production and providing employment.
Fourth, review collection and litigation procedures, guarantee the right to object and appeal, ensure impartial adjudication, and prevent any practices that undermine citizens’ dignity or exceed the authority granted by law.
Fifth, establish a single point of contact to resolve disputes over levies, reduce the need to deal with multiple authorities, set deadlines for responses, and allow transparent, publicly disclosed settlements.
Sixth, link the assessment of local authorities’ performance to economic indicators, such as the number of enterprises that have resumed operations, the jobs preserved, new investment attracted and sustainable growth in the revenue base, rather than revenue collection alone.
Seventh, give the pharmaceutical industry and other strategic industries priority in recovery programmes, through coordination among federal, state and local authorities.
These measures are not intended to weaken local authorities or deprive them of resources. Their purpose is to reform the relationship between revenue collection and development, between authority and responsibility, and between the state’s right to revenue and society’s right to an economy capable of sustaining itself.
A Final Word
Sudan does not need more battles between its economic and administrative institutions. The war has drained lives, money and productive capacity, weakening factories, companies and markets. It makes no sense to call on the private sector to rebuild the country and then place barricades of fees, procedures and demands in its way without regard for the consequences of war.
Respecting business owners is not a favour to capital. It is respect for work, production, employment and the public interest. Protecting national enterprises is not taking sides with the wealthy; it is protecting the economy and society.
We are not asking for anyone to be exempted from the law. We are asking that the law not become an instrument of economic depletion, that local authorities not become revenue-collection bodies detached from their responsibility for development, and that business owners not become victims of war, losing what little remains because of a lack of flexibility and fairness.
Ladies and gentlemen, do not extract revenue from the economy in ways that bring about its death!
A factory that resumes production will generate revenue for the state for years to come. A shop that survives will preserve jobs and livelihoods. A company operating in a fair environment will invest, expand and pay what it owes. But when an enterprise shuts its doors, no amount of court proceedings or claims by local authorities will help it recover an economy whose productive base has died.
The time has come for the revenue collection mindset to stop treating producers as targets for extraction and for the state to start treating them as partners in recovery. Sudan will not rise from the rubble of war if one hand keeps destroying while another collects levies, and no hand reaches out to save what remains.
Former Banker – Institutional Development Consultant

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=19102