Speech of the Official Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the Wilayah of Sudan

At the Press Conference on Saturday, 26 Rabi' al-Akhir 1447 AH, corresponding to 10/18/2025 AD

Entitled: (The Government's Confusion in How to Control Dealing with Gold and its Impact on the Value of the Pound)

After the secession of South Sudan in 2011 AD, and Sudan lost more than 75% of its oil exports, gold emerged as a major alternative to compensate for this loss, and achieve revenues from hard currency. Mining had spread widely in Sudan after about 2008 AD, and Sudan's gold production became large, reaching 73.8 tons in 2024 AD, ranking fifth in Africa (Al Jazeera Net), but the state, nor the people, did not benefit from this large production, as it became plunder for individuals, and for foreign and local companies, and even what is produced through artisanal mining, some companies and entities buy it and smuggle it. To confirm what we said in this regard, we review the largest gold mines in Sudan, by way of example only, and how the government deals with these mines!

One of these mines is the Jebel Amer mine, which is located about 100 km north of the city of El Fasher, and its production is estimated at about 50 tons per year, according to Reuters, making it the third largest gold mine in Africa, but the government did not lay its hand on it, but left it to armed groups, the latest of which was in 2017, where the mine became the property of the Rapid Support Forces, and Russian companies such as Wagner.

Although Al-Juneid Company, affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces, announced in 2021 that it had handed over the Jebel Amer mine to the government, on the ground, the mine remained under its control until this day.

The Hassai mine, which is located in northeastern Sudan, with Ariab Sudanese Company owning 60% of the mine's share, and La Mancha Resources Company, owned by the Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris, owning 40%.

Block 14 mine is located near the Egyptian border in northern Sudan, and is called the Miyas Sand Project. The Australian Perseus Swiss Company owns 70%, the Sudanese government 20%, and 10% for a local Sudanese company called Miyas.

In a report published by Al Jazeera Net, the gold of the Jebel Amer mine, and more than 10 other mines in South Darfur, is smuggled to Chad, and papers are extracted for it as Chadian gold and then exported to the Emirates. The process of smuggling gold from Sudan is a process in which influential figures in the government have been involved since the era of the Salvation Government, where it was smuggled through Khartoum Airport, and through Sudanese ports, and there are also companies affiliated with the army, and others belonging to the intelligence service, working in gold exploration, and the proceeds of these companies do not enter the state treasury.

After the outbreak of the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces; this war that destroyed most of the economic infrastructure and others, as exports, which were supplying the treasury with what is called hard currency (the dollar), stopped, the local currency, the Sudanese pound, began to erode and collapse against the US dollar, and other foreign currencies, which was reflected in people's lives, which in the first place became unbearable because of the war, so poverty and deprivation increased, and disease and hunger spread.

In an attempt to stop this deterioration, a meeting of the Economic Emergency Committee was held, chaired by Prime Minister Kamel Idris, on Wednesday, August 20, 2025 AD, and the committee issued decisions to control economic performance, according to the Sudan News Agency, and the most important of these decisions are:

1- Classifying possession or storage of gold without documents as a smuggling crime.

2- Follow up on exports to avoid gold smuggling.

3- Confine the purchase and marketing of gold to a government entity.

And other decisions, and although they emphasized confining the purchase and marketing of gold to a government entity, they violated this decision. There was a meeting in which the dismissed Governor of the Bank of Sudan, Burai Al-Siddiq, insisted that the Central Bank of Sudan be the only entity that exports gold. A heated dispute had erupted in this official meeting, which was held in the Ministry Complex in Port Sudan on 10/12/2025 AD, where Governor Burai adhered to the decision to exclusively export gold through the Central Bank, while representatives of gold exporting companies insisted on their right to export directly without the mediation of the Central Bank, and Minister of Finance Jibril Ibrahim supported the position of the companies, so the Governor left the meeting angry, which was the reason for his dismissal the next day, as Al-Burhan issued a decision to relieve him of his duties, and appoint Amna Mirghani; the first woman to hold this position in Sudan. While the root of the problem in the government's dealing with gold remains is:

a- Putting large gold mines in the hands of companies and individuals, instead of the state taking over them, which causes the country to lose a lot of its wealth and goes into the hands of a few.

b- Inability to control the extracted gold and know its quantities.

c- Conflicts in policies towards extracted gold, in terms of determining the purchase price, the purchasing entity, and monopoly, which led to the spread of the phenomenon of smuggling abroad and to neighboring countries (Egypt, the Emirates and Chad).

d- Failure to benefit from artisanal mining that is smuggled, knowing that about 70% of the declared amount of gold produced is from artisanal mining, which reveals the volume of smuggling that takes place in gold.

Because the issue of gold is closely linked to the currency, the problem of the erosion of the value of the Sudanese pound can be summarized in several reasons, the most important of which are:

1- The Sudanese pound is based on the dollar instead of gold and silver.

2- Printing banknotes without gold or commodity cover, which raises the inflation rate that causes the value of the pound to erode.

3- Weak exports due to smuggling and political instability, despite the fact that Sudan possesses a huge agricultural and animal wealth, and minerals, which would have made it one of the richest countries in the world.

4- Dependence on imports in many needs such as wheat, medicines, petroleum materials, and others, and this requires dollars, which makes the demand for the dollar high, and weakens the pound, so people lost confidence in the pound, which continued to erode daily, so people, especially merchants, prefer to keep dollars, or gold, as a means of preserving the value of their savings, which raises the price of the dollar, and lowers the value of the local currency.

This is the reality with regard to the government's dealings with gold, as well as with the local currency; the pound, and confusion and lack of clarity in how to address the issue appear through this dealing.

We in Hizb ut-Tahrir / Wilayah of Sudan, and out of our responsibility towards our Ummah, present radical solutions, with regard to this issue, based on the Islamic creed, so we say:

Firstly: Gold, especially mines whose production does not stop; such as the mines that we mentioned when we talked about gold mines in Sudan, are considered public property, that is, it is not permissible to own them to companies or individuals, but rather they are the right of the entire Ummah, and the state's task is to supervise exploration and marketing, and that its proceeds are either in public projects for all people, or that the funds are distributed to them, and the state has no right, that is, the state is not allowed to deal with public property by allocating it to individuals and companies, neither by donation nor by connection, nor by other means, for Al-Tirmidhi narrated from the route of Abyad bin Hammal «that he went to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and asked him to give him a piece of salt land, so he gave it to him, but when he turned away, a man from the assembly said: Do you know what you have given him? You have only given him the abundant water. He said: So he took it back from him». The abundant money is that which does not stop, that is, you have given him a mine that does not stop, because salt is a mineral like abundant water that does not stop, therefore the government has no right to own any part of the gold to companies, and it must agree with the companies on specific amounts by which the companies extract gold for the public good and not for the companies. The companies have no right to the extracted gold, and thus it is guaranteed that all the gold becomes in the hands of the state, which disposes of it for the benefit of the Ummah.

Secondly: The origin of the state's money is that it should be from gold and silver. The Prophet ﷺ approved the Roman dinar and the Persian dirham as currency for the Islamic state with a known weight, until the Islamic dinar was minted with a weight of 4.25 grams, and the dirham with a weight of 2.975 grams of silver, until the dollar dominated after the decision of US President Nixon to cancel the dollar's link to gold, after the dollar became the currency on which almost the whole world is based, and Article 167 of the draft constitution of the Khilafah state prepared by Hizb ut-Tahrir stated the following:

(The state's money is gold and silver, whether minted or not. It is not permissible for it to have any currency other than them. The state may issue something other than gold and silver, provided that it has in the state treasury what is equal to it of gold and silver. The state may issue copper, bronze, paper or other things and mint it in its name as its currency if it has an equivalent equal to it of gold and silver).

Why did we specify gold and silver as the basis? This is because Islam linked gold and silver to fixed rulings that do not change; such as the diya; 1000 gold dinars, and the amount of cutting off the hand in the hadd theft except in a quarter of a dinar or more, and other rulings that the Sharia linked to gold and silver, as Islam made zakat on money in gold and silver, but rather all the financial transactions that came in Islam are on gold and silver.

Thirdly: Sudan is the country of gold, and when it makes gold the basis of its currency, its currency will be the strongest currency that has value, because it has an intrinsic value that is not affected by anything else, and its value remains stable, perhaps it decreases a little or increases a little, but it will never be like what is happening now to the local Sudanese currency of erosion, if it benefited from the wasted gold revenues, by implementing the Sharia ruling in dealing with gold, he said ﷺ: «...and in the rikaz (treasure) a fifth (is to be paid)»; that is, the state takes all the abundant mines that do not stop, as it has the right to (one-fifth) of what is produced by individuals.

Fourthly: The one who applies these radical solutions is a principled state with self-reliance, and not a functional state as our country is today; subordinate to the disbelieving colonizer, who seeks to plunder wealth, impoverish people, and work to tear apart its unity to weaken it!! Here is America, which separated South Sudan so that Sudan would not benefit from oil, now seeking to separate Darfur, which is rich in gold and precious minerals.

O people of Sudan: There is no salvation for you except by working hard with Hizb ut-Tahrir to establish the Rightly Guided Khilafah State on the method of Prophethood, which pleases your Lord, restores your glory, and you live under its shade, enjoying the blessings that God has bestowed upon our country.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings.

Ibrahim Othman (Abu Khalil)

Official Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir

In the Wilayah of Sudan