Merowe Dam and Development in Northern Sudan

Merowe Dam and Development in Northern Sudan: Where is Mr. Vice President Kiir in the Projects of the Presidency

By James Okuk Solomon

I got an opportunity on 24^th June, 2007 to visit Merowe Dam and some accompanied development projects in that area. I am impressed that Presidency of the Republic of the Sudan is doing a great job for the generation of Northern Sudan with that project. The Dam is five meters (5m) tall and 176 km. long. It has the capacity of storing eleven milliard cubic centimetres (11,000,000,000 cm3). The project is implemented by a combination of a number of Northern Sudanese and International companies in addition to Northern consultants from some Sudanese Universities (mostly from University of Khartoum).

Though that work is so impressive I felt uneasy to find that there are no Southern Sudanese represented in the administration of that project (whether from the office of the President or that of the Vice President or even from the involved companies). I only saw Northerners!!! It is obvious that the project is benefiting the Northern Sudanese only in term of well paid jobs and trade dividends. Does it mean there are no Southern Sudanese engineers and administrators who are qualified to be involved in that developmental work? Or Does it mean they have been marginalized and kept a distance so that they do not expose the internal operation and transparency of that project? Or does it mean they are denied to benefit from consultancy and administrative big remuneration from that work, which can enable them to help their people in different ways? Why are not the same projects being seen in Southern Sudan since the debts incurred by their implementation affect the whole Sudan?

I hope our Vice president, H.E Salve Kiir will take this challenge to at least push for the Southern Sudanese consultants and administrators to be involved in such projects, and also to push very hard that some of such kind of big development projects happens in Southern Sudan. Let him not be pre-occupied with the problems of Salaries and ?Chapter One? in the South and let go many opportunities which are exploited by the presidency for the sake of the North. Within that Presidency, the strategies and plans for developmental infrastructure are being drawn in the name of the whole country but implemented in Northern Sudan alone. Is the South in this way getting a fair share of infrastructure from the common wealth of Oil, which is suppose to make unity attractive? Please Northerners, be fair to the South if you want Sudan to remain as one strong Country because you know it well, and Southerners also know it pretty well that the South is the lifeline of the flourishing future of the whole Sudan ? if it got cut the North will become weak to suffer!