Sudan has started checking offers from its first ever tender to import fuel, the energy and mining ministry said in a statement on Friday, according to Reuters.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said in an interview with a state-radio on Friday that the tender, for September supplies, would be financed by a recently created fund to import basic commodities.
The ministry statement said the offers were being checked “with complete transparency” that won companies’ praise. Sudan used to depend on direct purchases in the past.
Fuel subsidies that were a source of widespread corruption are being gradually phased out.
Sudan’s economy is at risk of freefall, hammered by an annual inflation of more than 100% and shortages of electricity, bread, fuel and medicine. The country also is struggling to raise hard currency for fuel imports.
In July, Hamdok announced long-awaited economic political reforms aimed at rescuing the economy and keeping its civilian transition on track after the ouster of Omar al-Bashir last year.
Sixteen of 28 local and international companies which received the tender terms brochure presented offers, the ministry said, adding that the checking and awarding process would continue in coming days.
The ministry called companies to take part in a second tender to import petroleum products from October 2020 to March 2021.
The last date to present offers at this tender is Sept. 20, according to the ministry’s website. Sudan said in June it would create a trade financing fund with a portfolio of $2 billion to aid the import and export of key commodities such as wheat as the supply of foreign currency in circulation dwindles.
Hamdok has been running a civilian cabinet under a precarious, transitional power-sharing deal with the military since Bashir’s overthrow.