“We are negotiating on how to phase out the Sudanese pound in the south, because the north have decided to have nothing to do with the pound,” Elijah Malok, number two in the Central Bank of Sudan, told reporters in the southern capital Juba.
“They [the north] have the dinar and I am sure they are still keeping it in their coffers,” added Malok, who is also president of the Bank of Southern Sudan.
The Sudanese pound replaced the dinar in 2007, but its value has plummeted in recent months due to political uncertainty, a surge in food prices and weak state finances.
“As soon as the whistle is blown for the independence of southern Sudan, they will forget the pound, and the negotiations are going on as to how to redeem it or how to bring it back to the coffers of the bank of South Sudan, with the agreement of the political system in the north,” Malok said.
A whopping 99.57% of southern voters opted for independence from the north in a landmark referendum last month, according to preliminary results announced on Sunday.
Final results from the vote, which was the centrepiece of a 2005 peace deal that ended a devastating 22-year civil war between north and south, are not expected until later this month but the landslide majority for secession is set to put the south on the path to international recognition in July.
Political decision
Malok said the final decision on Sudan’s monetary future would be taken by the political leaderships of north and south.
“It is a political decision whether we will continue to use the pounds that we now have in our pockets, or produce a new note that is authorized as a local tender,” Malok said.
Southern president Salva Kiir returned to Juba from an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa, which he said endorsed last month’s referendum.
“The summit… was to accept and recognise the legitimacy of the [referendum] results… and the will of the people of southern Sudan to become independent people, and this was done,” Kiir said.
“There is a communique accepting southern Sudan as one new nation in Africa, country number 54.”
Kiir praised his civil war foe, President Omar al-Bashir.
“I really pay tribute to President Bashir for recognising the results in front of the international community,” Kiir told reporters at Juba airport.
“I would like to assure him we will not let him down… we will do everything possible for the prosperity of the two nations – of the north and the south.”
As well as Sudan’s monetary future, a raft of other issues have to be thrashed out between the two sides before recognition of an independent south on July 9.
They include the demarcation of the north-south border and the future of the disputed frontier district of Abyei, the sharing of oil revenues and future arrangements for northerners in the south and southerners in the north.
Source: news24