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The anti-corruption research organization Global Witness also analyzed the bills and concluded that all three lack guarantees on contract and financial transparency.

Though the act offers broad assurances that oil information is public, a provision allows the ministry to determine whether or not a particular oil contract is published, said Dana Wilkins, a campaigner for Global Witness. No contract had been made public as of late 2012.

Officials and oil companies in Uganda try to control the message by providing organized tours of oil drilling facilities. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development's 2011 communication strategy paper recommends two media tours of the Albertine Graben oil-drilling area each year. "Sure, it's easy to go to oil areas for oil company-organized events," Ssekika said. "You can talk to district officials, etc. But when you go alone with your own view, that's a different story."

"When China National Offshore Oil Corporation [CNOOC] struck a deal with Tullow Oil to develop Uganda's fields, it warned [President Yoweri] Museveni that there wasn't time to wait for parliamentary debates over the issue--pausing now could mean Uganda losing its winning lottery ticket to Kenya," Lay wrote on the African Arguments news website. Tullow's communications manager in Kampala, Cathy Adengo, disputed that depiction. "Tullow did not push the Ugandan authorities into doing anything, considering we had a two-year wait to ratify the deal with CNOOC," Adengo said.

The company has faced further lawsuits over pollution in the Delta and alleged ties to the Nigerian military, according to Reuters. "Imagine, it took a court case launched in America before activities of oil companies were discovered," said Omoyele Sowore, publisher of the anti-corruption website Sahara Reporters and a former Niger Delta resident. The legal disputes resulted in an estimated loss of one million barrels of oil a day for the Nigerian government and private companies, according to Nigerian writer Orikinla Osinachi.

Oil revenues count for 80 percent of the national budget, yet the government is unable to determine the amount of oil extracted from its territory, according to Alex Awiti, an ecologist at Aga Khan University in Nairobi.

Nigeria's situation is not unique. Although Angola is the second-largest oil producer in Africa with an annual GDP of $101 billion and per capita income of nearly $9,000, more than two-thirds of its 8 million people live under the $2-a-day poverty line, according to the World Bank and news reports. These statistics, said Awiti, are rooted in the lack of transparency in Angola's oil production--leading to corruption, millions of dollars being stashed abroad, and revenue sequestered in a secret "parallel budget." In 2012, the International Monetary Fund attributed a $32 billion gap in Angola's state funds from 2007 to 2010 to "quasi-fiscal operations by the state-owned oil company."

With oil output still in early stages in East Africa, the region has time to learn from other oil-producing countries. Chad has drilled oil since 2003, with the contracts kept secret. "The fact is Chadians do not know how many barrels are actually produced and where the money goes," said former N'Djaména Hebdo journalist Augustin Zusanne, who now works for the United Nations. Without such information, residents can hardly press for more development. "Even the oil-producing region, Doba, does not benefit from oil revenues. The population of this area lives in poverty," said Eric Topona, a journalist with the state broadcaster. However, things might improve, as Chad is now a candidate for membership in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international forum that seeks openness by ensuring that oil payments are published annually. Government officials, oil companies, and civil society organizations oversee the process.

In its 2008 Oil and Gas Policy, Uganda said it would apply for membership in the EITI, but it did not say when and nothing has been implemented, according to news reports. "The way the EITI section is drafted clearly shows a government that is not sincere or ready to implement--it's so vague," Kamugisha of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance said in describing the Ugandan policy. Kenya has made no commitment to join the Initiative. Eddie Rich, deputy head of the EITI secretariat, confirmed that South Sudan and Uganda have made public commitments to implement the initiative and said "international partners are working with those governments to progress toward official applications." None of the African countries working with EITI are disclosing information on compensation to local people affected by oil production, Rich said.

But East Africa does not have to look overseas for mentors: Ghana, Liberia, and even the Democratic Republic of Congo publish oil contracts. "It took years, but contracts are now in the public domain," said Ghanaian development economist Charles Abugre, who vigorously campaigned for publication.