South Sudan: Indians, Somali, Lebanese Occupy Local Markets – Gout
The Advisor in the South Sudan Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agricultural Land Matters who is also Chairman of Import & Export Garang Gout Chol said last Monday in his office during an interview on his role and duty that eighteen National Units to control the markets plus other things have been working for three months in the department of imports and exports.
The national unit for exports and imports, that for small industries and professions, the one for transport which are composed of (a) road transport, (b) river transport, (c) air transport (d) railway transport unit. The units of national agricultural and animal production, the national wholesale, the national retailers and the national services and economic units.
He said his role and duty are to supervise the goods coming from outside and inside the country and to control the flow by monitoring all wholesalers in the markets.
For example sugar bought from exporting countries like Dubai, Brazil, Cuba, America is to be brought with reasonable prices and receipts of all stores.
In the South what are exported are rice, groundnuts, sesame, sorghum/dura, cassava, red and white meat. Different kinds of fruits are also produced in western Equatoria State, Upper Nile and Bahr- El- Ghazal in addition to those items like gum of South Sudan, skin from cattle, oil/petroleum etc.
Guot however said that there is no control in the markets where oil is very expensive in the stations, e.g. 5 liters of oil/ petroleum & diesel cost 30 SSP. He said these high prices were because the government itself allowed the sellers to sell with those amounts. On their part he said they don’t want the economy of the country to be in the hands of foreigners.
Gout said, governments are supposed to support national companies through banks, especially the commercial ones. He said it would be a danger to give licenses of exports to foreigners and now the market itself are occupied by them.
He pointed that foreigners who have come to South Sudan form commercial organizations or chambers but that it is not good for the government of South Sudan to allow foreigners to form chambers especially by Somali, Indians and Lebanese.
Gout said, the foreigners who entered South Sudan don’t have any source, but they occupy markets and even some of the residences are all full of foreigners who sign plots contracts with the citizens of South Sudan for more than 30 years and that is dangerous.
As a chamber of commerce, he said they have called for introduction of laws to regulate business activities. The Ministries involved would be of Commerce, of investment, of Finance and Economic Planning, of Justice, of Agriculture, because it will supply machines for cultivation, of Health to deal with clinics, pharmacies, of Wildlife, Animal Resources and of Interior which will help them in case when the traders/retailers bring expired goods.
In addition to that, the 10 states of South Sudan chambers of commerce will cooperate with them in the same system.
Meanwhile he said, they now are planning to build markets near borders between South Sudan with Zaire/Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan. So those small traders can bring there goods from those markets.
He explained that the license for exports comes from the Ministry of Commerce and they will go the citizens. The laws for foreigners make up 69% and national companies have 31% in term of investment. As a chamber they don’t allow this, because anyone who wants to invest is to have at least 20,000 SSP to 40,000 SSP.
They want investors for agriculture, industry plus others and the license is only allowed to the national companies. Some of their people are now working for the local laws soon it will be out, he concluded.
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