South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"

By Awan Achiek
The Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) on Monday welcomed the lifting of force majeure by the Sudanese government on oil exports.
Force majeure was declared on March 16, after operators of the Jabalayn-Port Sudan pipeline discovered gelling between Pump Stations 4 and 5, located in a military operation zone.
The incident was noted by Sudanese authorities when an impeded flow was detected in mid-February.
Dr. Mohieddin Naaiem Mohamed Saied, Sudan’s Minister of Energy and Petroleum, on January 4 announced the lifting of force majeure on oil export in a letter to Puot Kang Chol, South Sudan’s Minister of Petroleum.
Edmund Yakani, the Executive Director for CEPO, in a statement on Sunday welcomed the lifting of the force majeure on oil exports, saying that resumption of oil production will help bring peace and stability in both countries.
Yakani urged both the government of Sudan and South Sudan to effectively utilize the generated revenue for the benefit of the citizens.
“We hope that this oil production will not be used for fueling further violence against the civilian population in both countries in Sudan and South Sudan,” he said.
Yakani also warned against the use of oil money to perpetuate human rights violations against the civilian population in Sudan.
“We are a bit disturbed that the revenue generated from this oil production is going to fuel armed violence in Sudan and is going to fuel corruption in South Sudan,” he said.
“We feel the best interest of the citizens will not be linked to this crude oil production like what we have seen in the past,” Yakani said, adding that citizens of both countries yearn to have a stable state that will allow them to perform their duties as the constitution requires.
South Sudan lost 70 percent of revenues due to rupture along the oil pipeline en-route to Port Sudan amid the ongoing civil war in neighboring Sudan.