Chad Suspends Import Taxes on Food to Avoid Sudan-Style Protests
- Power outages, food and cooking-gas shortages plague Chadians
- President Idriss Deby is longtime ally of Omar al-Bashir
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Chad scrapped import taxes on staple foods to quell growing anger about rising food prices, a month after protests in neighboring Sudan over high costs of living forced President Omar al-Bashir to step down.
The decision comes amid regular, days-long power outages in the capital, N’Djamena, and after almost four months of an acute cooking-gas shortage that forced the poorest residents to use cow dung as fuel. Last year, civil servants went on strike for weeks to protest a range of austerity measures President Idriss Deby said were needed to get a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.