The Relationship Between Business and Government to 1945

This chapter explores the political and structural relationship between the Sudan Plantations Syndicate and the Sudan government across the years of their partnership, c.1907–1945. The chapter examines the technical aspects of the relationship, focusing in particular on the negotiations of the various agreements that established the framework for the governance of the Gezira Scheme and set the terms of the political-economic compact formed between the different parties, including the imperial government in London. The first section of the chapter looks at the structure of the loan agreements issued with a UK Treasury guarantee that were used to finance infrastructure projects, covering the period to 1919. The second section of the chapter then looks at the inter-war revisions to the agreements between business and government that were, in part, driven by the economic experience of the great depression. The third section of the chapter then turns to the issue of taxation and how the tax burdens were shared between the different parties to the Gezira Scheme, and how changes over time in those burdens reflected shifting political power, in this case away from business and to the state.