In recent years, corruption in land governance in Sudan has come under greater scrutiny, not least as a result of the increased commercial value of agricultural and urban land and concerns that corruption plays a role in facilitating large-scale land acquisition by investors. Corruption is associated with unresponsive, unaccountable, and frequently ineffective land governance. The systemic enablers of corruption include: (i) prevalence of discretionary power within land administration; (ii) the role of parallel institutions for land management, (iii) overlapping formal and customary institutions and the partial or non-recognition in law of established customary rights; (iv)extensive state powers and non-transparent procedures forth allocation and privatization of public land. Corruption has been shown to be extensive in processes of delivery and development of urban land for commercial and residential purposes, in processes of land acquisition from, and utilization of land revenues by, customary authorities, and in the capture of land titling programs by national and local elites. 

Of particular concern is the risk of corruption associated with larger-scale investments, agricultural development corridors, and their supply chains, whereby investors including national and local elites can override the rights and interests of less powerful land users. Key corruption risks are impunity of political elites in securing favorable land allocations, leading to elite capture of international land deals, associated kickbacks and profits from commercial land development, and the use of landform political patronage. In addition, unclear legislative and regulatory frameworks around large-scale agricultural investment open up much room for discretion and abuse by public officials and powerful individuals at national and local levels. At an upstream level, the opaque structures of both national and international companies and lack of transparency surrounding the financing and contractual details of investment projects constitute systemic corruption risks. Lack of transparency in investment chains and company ownership structures and, at the midstream level, in land allocation for investment purposes also renders the systematic identification of involved actors and specific types of corruption problematic. The main causes of land-related corruption identified are lack of political will at a host country level, linked to vested interests in land development and control of land for the purposes of patronage, and the power imbalance between actors profiting from corruption and those suffering its effects. 

One of the most common forms in which corruption occurs is in bribery of land officials to facilitate access to information and services or favorable outcomes of administrative decisions in land valuation, development planning, and resolution of disputes or formal allocation of land rights . This occurs as a result of the high level of discretionary power and authority and access to rent-seeking opportunities that land officials have as a result of the complexity and lack of clarity of land administration procedures. These are often ill suited to the needs of most land users in developing countries, and frequently entail the abuse of discretion for personal gain, combined with nepotism and favoritism, involving family members or political or business associates. Systems to detect bribery and corruption within land registration and valuation offices are largely inexistent. Read the full report Here