1st LD-Writethru: Sudan's president fires foreign minister
Xinhua,April 20, 2018 Adjust font size:
KHARTOUM, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday fired Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, official SUNA news agency reported.
The report did not give reasons behind the firing of the foreign minister.
The sack came after Ghandour on Wednesday spoke at the Sudanese parliament that his ministry failed to pay the expenses of the staff of Sudan's diplomatic missions abroad or the rents of a number of the missions' sites around the world.
He further said that a number of Sudanese diplomats working in the country's missions abroad expressed desire to return home because they have not received their salaries for months.
He explained that the value of diplomats' salaries and rents of missions amounted to 30 million U.S. dollars while the ministry's annual budget was about 69 million U.S. dollars.
Sudan has been suffering a shortage in foreign currencies since January this year, while the national currency declined against the U.S. dollar with the exchange rate of one U.S. dollar reaching around 35 Sudanese pounds. Enditem