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Arabica Robusta

Attacks on the Press: Oil, Money, and the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists - 0 views

cpj.org/...ss-oil-money-and-the-press.php

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource uganda sudan kenya ethiopia extraactive industries initiative eiti

shared by Arabica Robusta on 21 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Whether all this oil will benefit the average citizen depends largely on whether extraction deals are handled in an open, transparent manner. A comparison between Brazil and Nigeria is instructive. The South American country provides monthly updates on oil production on a state website. Brazil became the seventh-largest economy in the world with the help of oil output, with 2011 per capita income of $12,594, according to World Bank statistics. In Nigeria, five decades of oil output have been mired in secrecy and conflict. Although the country's oil exports are comparable to those of Brazil, its per capita income is just $1,452.
  • While Uganda's 2005 Access to Information Act theoretically covers documents between the government and private companies, oil contracts typically have special provisions whereby both parties must consent before information is given to a third party, according to Gilbert Sendugwa, coordinator of the Africa Freedom of Information Centre in Uganda. The secrecy clauses prevent even parliament from getting key information, according to Dickens Kamugisha, chief executive of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance, a Kampala-based think tank that advocates for transparent energy policies.
  • Since few Ugandan authorities comply with requests under the access law, few journalists bother to use it. Sendugwa noted that all government ministers are required to report how they implement the information act. "We decided to test the law and sent an information request to parliament in November 2010 asking for the ministers' reports on their implementation of the Access to Information Act," he said. "To this date, none have complied."
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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.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 21 Apr 13
       
      Does the EITI truly help encourage countries to be transparent?
  • 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.
Arabica Robusta

Ghana Crude Oil - Cocoa Curse And Gold Curse | Feature Article 2010-12-26 - 0 views

www.ghanaweb.com/...artikel.php

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource ghana

shared by Arabica Robusta on 28 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • The question to Ghana, Cameroon,Chad, Sudan, Angola, Gabon is, What did you do with your natural resources and other producct to better your people before and after oil discovery and the answer is nothing - zero -nil
  • Corruption i is endemic in Ghana despite their showing good face and conducting good election. Corruption is a big problem in Ghana, Example is the recent world cup Tournamant in South Africa, when Ghananian Players did quite well, but as they came back to Ghana, corrupt officials in Ghananian Football Association stole the world cup players money (fees) and some of the players have not been paid in full till today, and Ghana footbal body has been suspened by the Government, and investigation is on going and FIFA has suspended Ghana from International competition for corrupt practices.
  • Ghana cannot compare to Nigeria in any tangible thing now or in the near future, yes they have been conducting good elections and thats its for a small poor country, and Ghanaians and their leaders should stop camparing with Nigeria what they have not been able to do with cocoa and Gold.*
Arabica Robusta

African Democracy and Oil: A Combustible Mix | Revenue Watch Institute - 0 views

www.revenuewatch.org/...ocracy-and-oil-combustible-mix

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource ghana sierraleone tanzania uganda

shared by Arabica Robusta on 10 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • I was motivated by the conviction that parliaments are central to good governance—representing the voice of the people, making laws and holding the executive to account. I still believe that, but the complex challenges posed by oil wealth in today's Africa means parliaments across the continent struggle to fulfil these roles.
  • The message was clear: to be an MP representing the voice of your constituents against the interests of the elite can be dangerous. African MPs need not only to be wealthy, but also brave.
  • Tribalism is never far beneath the surface and is a major barrier to achieving a national consensus. For many Africans, tribal allegiances are strong, but there is weak identification with the nation. Crafting unity in a nation created by imposed colonial boundaries remains a distant concept—witness the imminent breakup in Sudan—and often impedes efforts to garner widespread support for a national oil or mining policy. Failed efforts to build national consensus around policy objectives can lead to situations like Ghana's, where the country has begun oil production without coming to agreement on a national oil policy, instead following an outdated law drafted in 1984 with few regulations to ensure the country derives the maximum benefit from its finite resources.
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  • Oil laws are still written without a national consensus on the role of the oil sector in the country's development. Detailed regulations are unwritten or unenforced. Lack of information and knowledge leave MPs with formal power but no means to actually hold government to account.
  • Foreign oil companies and their contractors effectively regulate themselves in places like Ghana and Sierra Leone. The lack of explicit regulations gives too much leeway for officials' discretion in approving activity, and too much risk of their making personal gain from their official position.
  • Most Ugandans I met assumed that they had been sold short by either their government or the oil companies. In fact, in my review of the contracts the Ugandan government negotiated, the agreements were tough and compared favourably with other countries.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Leaving oil in the soil - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...75430

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource south africa

shared by Arabica Robusta on 15 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Although the area contains the world's largest tiger reserve, according to reporter Thomas Maung Shwe of Mizzima news service, ‘the Burmese regime has encouraged logging, gold mining, large scale farms and the building of factories inside’. As the scandal grew, Silver Wave denied what its own press release had announced, but conceded it would drill near the reserve.
  • A company this dastardly is a high risk, and to prove the point, Silver Wave's environmental impact document includes a description of the notorious Agulhas Current, which begins at the Mozambique border: ‘Compared to other western boundary currents the Agulhas Current adjacent to southern Africa's East Coast exhibits a remarkable stability.’ Huh? In reality, the Natal Pulse races down the Agulhas a half-dozen times each year, pushing 20km per day. It is one reason Durban's coastline hosts more than 50 major ship carcasses. Creating havoc further south on the Wild Coast, the Pulse contributes to the rouge waves that have sunk 1,000 more vessels in what is considered one of the world's most dangerous shipping corridors.
  • Daily, poisons are flared onto thousands of neighbouring residents. The Indian, coloured and African communities suffer the world's highest-ever recorded asthma rate in a school (52 per cent of kids), as Settlers Primary sits next to the country's largest paper mill (Mondi) and between two refineries: one run by Engen, Chevron and Total; and the other, called Sapref, by BP, Shell and Thebe Investments. Sapref's worst leak so far was 1.5 million litres into the Bluff Nature Reserve and adjoining residences in 2001.
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  • Venezuelan dirty crude is akin to Canadian tar sands, and hopefully sense will prevail in Caracas.
  • In Quito and Neuva Rocafuerte deep in the Amazon last week, I witnessed the most advanced eco-social battle for a nation's hearts-and-minds underway anywhere, with the extraordinary NGO Accion Ecologica insisting that Correa's grudging government leaves the oil in Yasuni National Park's soil. Because he was trained in neoclassical economics and hasn't quite recovered, Correa favours selling Yasuni forests on the carbon markets, which progressive ecologists reject in principle.
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