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Sudan
Roads
In 1990 Sudan's road system totaled between 20,000 and 25,000
kilometers, comprising an extremely sparse network for the size
of the country. Asphalted all-weather roads, excluding paved streets
in cities and towns, amounted to roughly 3,000 to 3,500 kilometers,
of which the Khartoum-Port Sudan road accounted for almost 1,200
kilometers. There were between 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers of gravel
roads located mostly in the southern region where lateritic road-building
materials were abundant. In general, these roads were usable all
year round, although travel might be interrupted at times during
the rainy season. Most of the gravel roads in southern Sudan have
become unusable after being heavily mined by the insurgent southern
forces of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) (see Civil
Warfare in the South , ch. 5). The remaining roads were little
more than fair-weather earth and sand tracks. Those in the clayey
soil of eastern Sudan, a region of great economic importance,
were impassable for several months during the rains. Even in the
dry season, earthen roads in the sandy soils found in various
parts of the country were generally usable only by motor vehicles
equipped with special tires.
Until the early 1970s, the government had favored the railroads,
believing they better met the country's requirements for transportation
and that the primary purpose of roads was to act as feeders to
the rail system. The railroads were also a profitable government
operation, and road competition was not viewed as desirable. In
the mid-1930s, a legislative attempt had been made to prevent
through-road transport between Khartoum and Port Sudan. The law
had little effect, but the government's failure to build roads
hindered the development of road transportation. The only major
stretch of road that had been paved by 1970 was between Khartoum
and Wad Madani. This road had been started under a United States
aid program in 1962, but work had stopped in 1967 when Sudanese-United
States relations were broken over the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
United States equipment was not removed, however, and was used
by government workers to complete the road in 1970.
Disillusionment with railroad performance led to a new emphasis
on roads in a readjustment of the Five-Year Plan in 1973--the
so-called Interim Action Program--and a decision to encourage
competition between rail and road transport as the best way to
improve services. Paving of the dry-weather road between Khartoum
and Port Sudan via Al Qadarif and Kassala was the most significant
immediate step; this included upgrading of the existing paved
Khartoum-Wad Madani section. From Wad Madani to Port Sudan, the
road was constructed in four separate sections, each by different
foreign financing, and in the case of the Wad Madani-Al Qadarif
section, by direct participation of the Chinese. Other section
contractors included companies from Italy, West Germany, and Yugoslavia.
The last section opened in late 1980.
Other important road-paving projects of the early 1980s included
a road from Wad Madani to Sannar and an extension from Sannar
to Kusti on the White Nile completed in 1984. Since then the paved
road has been extended to Umm Ruwabah with the intention to complete
an all-weather road to Al Ubayyid. Paradoxically, most truckers
in 1990 continued to pass from Omdurman to Al Ubayyid through
the Sahelian scrub and the qoz to avoid the taxes levied
to use the faster and less damaging paved road from Khartoum via
Kusti.
A number of main gravel roads radiating from Juba were also improved.
These included roads to the towns southwest of Juba and a road
to the Ugandan border. In addition, the government built a gravel
all-weather road east of Juba that reaches the Kenyan border.
There it joined an all-weather road to Lodwar in Kenya connecting
it with the Kenyan road system. All these improvements radiating
from Juba, however, have been vitiated by the civil war, in which
the roads have been extensively mined by the SPLA and the bridges
destroyed, and because roads have not been maintained, they have
seriously deteriorated.
Small private companies, chiefly owner-operated trucks, furnished
most road transport. The government has encouraged private enterprise
in this industry, especially in the central and eastern parts
of the country, and the construction of allweather roads has reportedly
led to rapid increases in the number of hauling businesses. The
Sudanese-Kuwaiti Transport Company, a large government enterprise
financed largely by Kuwait, began operations in 1975 with 100
large trucks and trailers. Most of its traffic was between Khartoum
and Port Sudan. Use of road transport and bus services is likely
to increase as paved roads are completed south of Khartoum in
the country's main agricultural areas.
Data as of June 1991
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