On Monday night at twelve o’clock, the 15-day deadline announced by the Sudanese government to legalize vehicles came to an end. The target cars entered the country from neighboring countries by illegally.
The campaign began on January 12, in a number of Sudanese states , mainly the states of Darfur, to legalize at least 80 thousand cars.
The time limit has expired without all the cars that entered the country being registered, and that there are large numbers of cars that have not been counted.
South Darfur
The South Darfur Customs Department announced that it was able to register and count about 11,121 t cars, bypassing the approximate statistics of cars in the state it had announced at the beginning of the campaign, which was about 10,000 cars.
The Director of Customs in the state, Colonel Abdel Moneim Suleiman, told Darfur 24 that thousands of cars had not been registered due to the end of time limit . He stated that they had received requests from localities to transfer customs offices to localities, but customs are not able to meet the transition to localities, and he announced – at the same time – that they are committed to the deadline set by the central government, which ended Monday night, but they will continue in the procedures for obtaining certificates for all cars That have been counted, and receiving customs fees, whether by electronic or cash payment.
“The procedures related to the criminal examination, stolen cars, and the examination of Interpol, which were postponed until after the deadline of registration, will start Monday” the South Darfur Custom Director noted .
“During the procedures for criminal examination, car theft and Interpol check, if we discover that there is a car with problems, we will subject it to the necessary procedures” added” the South Darfur Custom Director.
Suleiman revealed a number of problems that faced the campaign, the most prominent of which was the lack of commitment by army and rapid support forces officers to the controls set by the customs administration to facilitate procedures, in addition to the slow internet network that stopped working for three consecutive days.
The Director of Customs said that they had discovered that there were still cars arriving in the state on a daily basis.
For his part, the governor of South Darfur, Major General Hashem Khaled confirmed that the state authorities, will start implementing the decision of confiscating unregulated cars to execute directives of the Transitional Sovereign Council.
The governor appealed to citizens who were unable to legalize their cars to store them cars in the houses and not to drive them on the city’s roads, so that they could avoid the order of confiscation.
He said that the state government is committed to preserving the state’s citizen rights and is also committed to implementing the decisions of the Sovereign Council, where the decision to close the borders with Central Africa and South Sudan has been implemented to prevent entry of any cars.
North Darfur
In North Darfur State, the Customs Administration announced Monday the registration of a number of 14,454 cars in each of the stations of El Fasher, Mallet, Maliha and Tina. But the Director of the Customs Department in the state, Colonel Dia El Din Abdel Rahman revealed a defect in the communications network, that affected operations at the Custom station of town of Melit.
The Director of Customs stressed that the state authorities are committed to implementing decisions of registration in accordance with the directives of the Transitional Sovereignty Council.
A member of the unregistered car owners’ group in North Darfur, “Amir Abu Bakr,” revealed that there are about 3 thousand cars in the state that have not yet been registered .
Abu Bakr appealed to the competent authorities to extend the registration period, so that everyone can register their cars. He also appealed to the owners and dealers of unregistered cars not to risk bringing other unregistered cars from neighboring countries..
A member of the professional gathering of unregistered car dealers in Al-Fasher, Ahmed Al-Fateh Saleh Adam, told Darfur 24 that the two-week period is not sufficient and they are appealing to the responsible authorities to extend the registration period to enable owners of unregistered vehicles complete the customs procedures.
East Darfur
While the customs administration in East Darfur was able to register 3736 cars out of approximately 8000 unregistered cars in the state.
According to information obtained by Darfur 24 from traffic police sources, the unregistered vehicles in East Darfur state are more than 8000 , including more than 4000 cars are still not counted because their owners did not bring them to Custom office for registration.
Meanwhile, the director of the customs department in the state of Central Darfur, Colonel Omar Mohamed Sayed Ahmed, said that they had registered 1950 cars since the start of the process two weeks ago.
Colonel Omar Mohamed Sayed Ahmed, stated that although they did not face a problem with the procedures, there were cars that were not counted, and the state authorities have no estimates of their numbers.