Fighter For Farmers Rights, Dr. Abuashara Appointed Gezira Scheme Board Chairman
14 June, 2020
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - A wave of satisfaction and optimism has swept the Gezira Scheme, the World’s largest irrigated scheme, over the news about the appointment of Dr. Siddiq Abdelhadi Abuashara as the Scheme Board Chairman.
The farmer’s joy is justified in that Dr. Siddiq is widely known to align with their causes and the scheme’s wellbeing, having always been preoccupied with the facility’s problems for which he devoted books and articles for decades.
The decision appointing Dr. Siddiq to the demanding responsibility was issued by Prime Minister Dr. Abdalla Hamdok, Tuesday, upon recommendation from the Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The decision is seen opportune in that the scheme is practically in shambles due to its mismanagement by the defunct regime, after it was the mainstay of the country’s economy for over a century.
The scheme was established in 1925 under the British administration of the country.
The Scheme runs over an irrigated area of 2.5 million acres of fertile land and can accommodate a similar additional area, given the construction of more feeder water canals.
The defunct regime had tried several times to privatize the Scheme until in 2005 when it virtually dismantled it by a flawed tenancy law.
In one of his articles, Dr. Siddiq had considered the inception of the 2005 law “as the biggest and peerless economic crime in modern history.”
Dr. Siddiq was born in Alugda village, West of the Gezira.
He obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics and statistics from the University of Khartoum and an Msc from the U.S Thomas Edison University, in addition to the certificate of property compensation consultant from the American Education Institute.
He was general secretary of general insurance trade union 1982 and after. The trade union had taken a leading role in the 1985 popular revolution that saw the ouster of former dictator Ja’afar Nimeiri.
-Member of the central committee of the commercial companies trade union.
-General Secretary of the U.S-based Coalition Against Torture, for several tenures.
-Founding member of the African-Caribbean Immigrants Association in the U.S.
-Member of the executive council of African-Caribbean Immigrants Association and chair of its economic committee 2006-2008.
-Winner of the award of the Afro-Asian Federation of Insurance and Reinsurance for his research entitled “Insurance and Some Islamic Concepts.”
-Writer in several newspapers, magazines and periodicals.
-Member of the American Economic Association.
-Published a number of books, including “The Gezira Scheme and the 2005 Law Crime,” which was banned in the Sudan.
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Yh/AS
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