The Gezira Scheme- A Collapsing Giant
14 December, 2014KHARTOUM (SUDANOW)—The Gezira Scheme has come to the forefront of events during the past weeks in the wake of the resignation that was tendered by the President of the Scheme's Board of Directors, Dr. Karrar Abbady and President Omar al-Beshir's remarks on failure of the Scheme. Those events were preceded by reports made by committees of Dr. Taj al-Sir Mustafa and Dr. Abdullah Abdul Salam, raising the issue of liquidation and sale of the Scheme's basic assets which consisted of the engineering workshops, the ginning mills, the railroad and the communication system. The reports called for identifying and bringing to accountability the individuals and institutions responsible for the liquidation and sale of the Scheme's assets.
The liquidation decision followed the termination of service of the engineers, staff and workers who at the peak of the success of the Scheme, numbered more than 10,000 and they were replaced by less than 300 personnel serving on contracts.
At that time, the gigantic infrastructure of the Scheme consisting of an irrigation network of a length totaling about 150,680 kilometers has eroded and exhausted by accumulation of the silt arriving from the Ethiopian Plateau and the failure to deal with that silt. The irrigation network was based on the smooth streaming movement of the irrigation water all along the distance from Sennar and Er Rosaries dams, the main canals and subsidiary ones down to northernmost farms about 30 kilometers south of the capital Khartoum. When the irrigation network has become virtually inefficient, the financially capable farmers brought pumps to irrigate their farms, while vast areas of the Scheme have suffered thirst. Now that the four assets were liquidated and sold and the infrastructure collapsed, nothing has remained from the Scheme except the lands besides the questions: "Who will possess those lands? Will they suffer the same fate of the other assets of the Scheme?"
In this article, we will try to reach answers to these two questions.
Following the failure of two attempts of growing cotton in Zaidab area, north Sudan, and Tokar and Gash areas in east Sudan, the authorities of Anglo-Egyptian Condominium decided to try the Gezira region where the plantation of 250 feddans (acres) in Taybah area, proved a success. This success prompted the gradual expansion of the acreage till it now reached 2.2 million feddans (acres) with the Managil Extension added to it during late President Ibrahim Abboud's regime.
The success of the Gezira Scheme was due to the situation of the region between the Blue Nile and the White Nile with vast fertile plains that facilitated introduction of the smooth streaming irrigation system which is much cheaper than the artificial irrigation. Being located in central Sudan, the Scheme was easy to be reached from all parts of the country, especially by the seasonal workers from west Sudan. Cotton was easily transported to Port Sudan and from there to the textile mills in Lancashire city, England, and later on to Japan, China and Switzerland.
The fertility of the Gezira soil helped minimize reliance on chemical fertilizers, while the cultivation skills of indigenous inhabitants, originally farmers of rain-fed crops, also contributed to the success of the Scheme.
Most of the lands which would be occupied by the Scheme were registered as a free property of individual people and the authorities at the time, instead of confiscating those lands, decided to rent them coercively, irrespective of agreement of the proprietors, and annex them to the lands owned by the government. Thus all of the irrigated lands came to be known as the Gezira Scheme, the world's largest agricultural project run by a single administration. It was the world's biggest cotton farm until issuance of the act of 2005 which provided for the freedom of growing other crops and ended the obligatory plantation of cotton.
The Gezira Scheme's consumption of water exceeded eight billion cubic meters which is 40% of the Sudan share as stipulated by the 1959 Nile Water Agreement with Egypt and more than 65% of the actual utilization of the Nile water.
Going back to the first question of who owns the lands of the Gezira Scheme. The lands which are registered as a free property of individuals of the Gezira inhabitants total 900,000 feddans (acres), that is, 40% of the total area of the Scheme which is 2.2 million feddans. An area of 410,000 feddans is in the main Gezira Scheme, while 490,000 feddans are within the Managil Extension. The government lands total 1.3 million feddans, that is, 60% of the total acreage. The famers, while cultivating the lands, used to pay the forced rent since the beginning of the Scheme in 1925 or since annexation of the free lands to the Scheme until today.
The condominium authorities rented the free property lands instead of confiscating them fearing that the confiscation might spark turmoil and revolts against the government by the inhabitants, bearing in mind a recent Abdul Gadir Wad Haboubah movement in the Gezira, fearing the third cotton plantation might also be a failure and avoiding the high cost of compensations in case of confiscation.
The authorities therefore opted for the coerced rent of only 10 piastres a feddan a year to be paid by the farmer, even if he was a proprietor of the land. An agreement on this arrangement was concluded in 1927, two years after the official inauguration of the Scheme on 15 July 1925, to be valid for 40 years from 1927 to 1967.
Despite alerts by the Gezira Board on the expiry of the lease of the free property lands in 1967, the successive national governments did not move to solve demands by the proprietors, with some demanding that their lands be given back to them and others demanding a rise in the rent. The proprietors demanded a rise in the rent of 10 piastres a feddan, i.e., two pounds for a 20-feddan plot which was not sufficient enough to cover the transport from home to the Gezira HQ office in Barakat. Accordingly and since 1967, the proprietors refrained from collecting the rents, but the Board continued to collect them from the farmers as fees for land and water.
Several committees were set up to solve the problem; one committee recommended in 1999 that the rent be raised to SDG 6,000 per feddan, which means that the arrears until 1999 would be SDG 5,368,464,000.
Another committee recommended in 2003 that the free property lands be confiscated and the proprietors be accorded fair compensations.
This recommendation, like the previous ones, was not applied.
Then came the 2005 Gezira Scheme Act which included a major article on the land property, providing that:
1) The proprietors at present in possession of lands plots (hawasha) will have those plots registered in their names as a personal property
2) The proprietors who are not possessing land plots will have their lands be confiscated and will be accorded fair compensations.
3) The farmers working on land plots but are not proprietors will continue cultivating the farms on the basis of a beneficial property for 99 years provided that they will have to pay a sum of money to be fixed by the Gezira Board in exchange for registering the land plot in their names as a personal property.
However, the Act has failed to give answers for the questions: How much is the fair compensation? Who is going to pay this compensation? And, what about the rent arrears since 1967, their value and who will pay them?
The Ministry of Finance has declined to meet the costs, arguing that the issue is the concern of the Gezira Board and the Government of the Gezira State. The latter says the Scheme is national and has nothing to do with, while the Board is facing difficulties of paying the salaries of its staff. The land proprietors and their new committee are now at a loss, running about in a vicious circle.
A close to 90 years have now elapsed since the Gezira Lands Act was issued in 1927, more than 60 since application of that Act on the Managil Extension lands, 47 years since the expiry of the lease contract (1967) without being renewed, amended or abrogated and nearly a decade since the issuance of the Gezira Scheme Act of July 2005. All these developments, all the court suits and the numerous committees could not resolve the lands of the Gezira Scheme and the problem was further complicated by time.
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MAS/ AS
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