ENGLISH — Trip to Sudan, part 2
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The second day started with the call of our lawyer who said that the quadrocopter will be released from the customs only after receiving a certificate that this device is not intended for military purposes. Preparation of such certificate will take 2–3 working days.
Provided that for today, we already scheduled a meeting at the Ministry of Mining of the Sudan, and tomorrow we planned to go to the desert to inspect the land-plots, it was decided not to risk and take another quadrocopter for rent in Khartoum. For these purposes, one of the jeeps together with the driver was sent to the outskirts of Khartoum, to meet with the photographer which has the quadrocopter.
Meanwhile, the main team went to the meeting with the Minister of Mining of the Sudan — Mr. Abdelbagi Gailani Ahmed Ali. Actually, Mr. Abdelbagi is the former Minister, retired and currently leading his own consulting company. But everybody call him “Minister” giving him reference for his influence. Now he is continuing to work in the field related to mining, but as the businessman.
After the traditional tea ceremony, we deep into discussion about the options for structuring business in the Sudan. Also, we talk over peculiarities of the relationship with the Ministry of Mining, the Ministry of Investments, as well as the Tax Administration of Sudan, which we considering to be the key government bodies for our project.
The consultations took more than two hours and prepared us well enough for the meeting at the Ministry of Mining.
After the lunch, we finally arrived to the Ministry, and were immediately informed by the military guards that no photo is possible, because the Ministry is the strategic / governmental object. But later, after we met with the Deputy Minister, and under the escort of the Secretary of the Ministry, we were allowed to make a couple of photos.
The Minister was not present on that day, so our delegation met with the Deputy Minister and the heads of the relevant departments.
It should be noted, that all employees starting the level of the Head of the Department, and including the Deputy Minister, are fluent in English. It was pleasantly surprising that the Ministry staff is not afraid to talk about the problems and risks of doing business in Sudan. It also feels that in general, the Government is willing to attract investors, so they are trying to help and are ready to discuss the guarantees.
The representatives of the Ministry confirmed to us that the one of the peculiarities of working in the Sudan is the need to build interaction with both government bodies — at the central level and with the local administrations (the head of the community / tribe). This is a very important point, and for this reason, Fahd el Saleh insisted that the core team should meet with the head of the community of the region where our land-plots are located (about this — in the next part of the trip report).
For the purposes of this blog, we will not deep into the details of the negotiations with the Ministry, the nuances and terms of the concession agreement (most of which is a commercial secret at the moment), etc.
However, it should be said that the result of the negotiations was a successful for us (I hope it was the same for the Sudanese side). The main point is that we were given the green light for the further implementation of the project.
After the meeting, we had a short tour around the Ministry. In particular, we were guided to the mini-museum of geology, with exhibition of the samples of minerals from all over the Sudan.
The most striking exhibit, undoubtedly, is the meteorite that was landed and subsequently found in the vast area of the Sahara (see in the picture below).
After the Ministry, we held a short internal discussion to agree that everyone is on the same page and decided to move further according to the previous plan. This means that tomorrow, early in the morning, we are departing to the dessert for inspection of the land-plots and extraction of the control samples of the ore. Our journey will take us more than a thousand kilometres through the desert, far from major cities, roads and other benefits of civilization. But closer to the gold! To be continued…
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Video https://youtu.be/zFGmX5CdYCI
Video2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xegjub-YWs
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