Sound Initiative
Muawad Mustafa Rashid
A few months ago the office of the 1st Vice President of the Transitional Sovereign Council announced the establishment of Production Bank under the auspices of First Vice President of the Transitional Sovereign Council, 1st Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The initiative aims at encouraging and providing support to the production in terms of financing small and large-scale projects.
The Production Bank targets 10 productive states and will provide financial assistance to some 200 thousand farmers.
We believe that more attention is required for production and its improvement, so the establishment of the bank comes timely and deserves appreciation.
Some might argue that there are financial institutions that have the same objectives e.g. Farmer’s Bank, Industrial Development Bank, Animal Resources Bank, Real Estate Bank, Saving Bank, Family Bank, etc.
We say, that it is true, but those institutions are not functioning professionally to serve the purposes of their establishment.
We typically make dozens of decisions a day–what to eat, what to wear, with whom to socialize, short-term planning, long-term planning, small and large life decisions, and the list goes on.
But some decisions are harder to make than others, whether because of our mood, our motivation, the situation, or the specifics of the decision itself and its implications—we just become stuck. We feel paralyzed and keep putting off the decision, which makes us feel worse and more pressure, which makes us feel even more paralyzed.
The proposed Production Bank will consider all the objectives of all the similar institutions to avoid any anticipated interactions.
I recall that in 1982 a rural bank financed by some European countries was established in Sudan under the name Sudan Rural Development Company (SRDC) to enter into partnerships in small-scale industries e.g. joineries, poultry farms, mixed farms, handcrafts, etc. besides providing loans against simple interest to small- scale industries.
The SRDC started its activities successfully through professional European experts, but its activities declined after announcing the Sharia Law which changed the simple interest formula into Murabaha, Musharaka, etc. a matter that contradicted with the financial procedures of the shareholders who preferred to withdraw.
Let us hope that the establishment of the Production Bank is the first step towards reforming the complications of financing the small-scale industries, hence upgrade production and productivity.
Production Bank is a sound initiative that deserves appreciation and support from all concerned institutions.
