Suki Pumps Maintenance Makes Summer season a Success
Report – Rehab Abdullah
The sudden stop of irrigation pumps at the end of January 2024 in the Suki Agricultural Project, threatening the loss of about 500 million fedans.
Meanwhile, a member of the Transitional Sovereign Council, Lieutenant General Engineer Ibrahim Jaber, directed the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to add the plan to rehabilitate the Suki Agricultural Authority in the budget for the current year 2024.
Suki Agricultural Authority requested the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to approve a direct contract to complete the installation of emergency pumps for the authority within the limits of 115 million pounds. The contract should be with Jamal Al-Din Integrated Engineering Works, and attributed this according to the letter, a copy of which Sudan Events obtained and was signed stating that the circumstances that the country is going through prevent holding a public tender, in addition to the lack of time that does not enable the summer season to enter, besides the fact that the previous work on the pumps was carried out with Jamal Al-Din Engineering Works.
*Irrigation system in Suki*
It is evident that the Suki Agricultural Authority’s irrigation system, which has an area of approximately 100,000 fedans, is carried out through pumps. The project was founded on four irrigation pumps, each with a capacity of 9 cubic meters per second. Later in 2010, these pumps were replaced with others of smaller capacity (each pump has a capacity of 7.5 meters cubic per second and of lower quality. However, the pumps suffered malfunctions in year 2015, and the Ministry of Finance failed to pay maintenance bills amounting to 157 thousand dollars at that time until year 2022, which caused the pumps to deteriorate.
In 2022, the Ministry of Finance paid the maintenance amount provided years ago, mechanical vents were imported, and two pumps were maintained, which enabled the success of large areas in the 2023 summer season and the announcement of the return of the Suki project to the production department after the failure of three consecutive seasons.
*Farmers’ opinion*
One of the farmers’ leaders adds:
Although the irrigation situation improved in the 2023 season through the two units that were maintained
However, the sudden stopping of the pumps at the end of January 2024 may cause the loss of an estimated 500 million fedans for vegetable farmers, in addition to the animals’ need for irrigation.
It is noteworthy that most of the livestock of Gezira state have moved to neighboring areas, especially Suki project, in addition to a number of more than three million heads of total livestock in the Suki project.
He points out that the situation of pumps today is not reassuring, as one pump out of four is working.
The three broken pumps have electrical problems and some of them have machining problems that require large workshops such as Giad or Kenana as well as a maintenance budget. He emphasized the importance of maintaining these pumps to enter the early summer season in light of the extreme living conditions and for the Suki project community to accommodate millions of displaced people. He called on the Ministries of Finance, Irrigation and Agriculture to pay attention, before it is too late, he said.
*Expected losses*
The head of the initiative to rehabilitate the Suki Agricultural Project, Engineer Omar Hashim Bahr, warned in his statement to Sudan Events:
There will be a loss of the summer season in the Suki project in the year 2024, if the Ministries of Finance and Irrigation did not move now to address the irrigation problem, despite the great improvement that occurred in the project in year 2023. He added that the number of pumps is four, and last summer season two were maintained, while there is only one working now,
Omar Hashem expected that the damage and losses would reach a minimum of 500 million if irrigation is disrupted to the presence of tomato vegetables in the harvest
