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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Leave new oil in the soil in Africa - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...66289

industry petroleum development oil international extractive nigeria transparency curse resource

shared by Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The desire to capture more oil reserves is driving exploration and development of oil and gas fields in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Puntland, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, the Comoros, Seychelles and the coast of Durban in South Africa.
  • The National oil spill detection and response agency (NOSDRA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have identified over 2,000 spill sites that need to be remediated. Some of these spills happened over 40 years ago. The Ebubu spill that occurred in 1970, has not been cleaned up and Shell, the company implicated in the disaster, is vigorously appealing a judgement of a federal high court which ordered it to pay US$40 million compensation as at 2001.[3]
  • Even though Ikiogha is the government bureaucrat in charge of penalising Shell for the spill and signing off on the cleanup, he is also the contractor hired by Shell to do the cleanup… His cleanup operation consists of four shirtless men scooping oil from the surface of the polluted river with Frisbees… he claims that most of the oil had earlier been removed with absorbent foam and blankets.’[5]
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10
       
      Kenneth Feinburg.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The idea of leaving oil in the ground within the Yasuni forest was taken up in far away Ecuador by no less than the government of the country itself and is receiving widespread acceptance.
  • The world’s ecosystem is one and we have merely scratched the surface in understanding the intricate interconnectedness of nature at different levels. It is therefore short sighted to continue the reckless expansion of drilling around the world because in the long run the revenue we may earn today from oil extraction would not be sufficient to adequately return our environment to what it was before extraction when incidents like these occur.
  • We must begin by acknowledging that the sensible use of our ecosystem has the capacity in the long-term to provide much more benefits and revenue than oil can ever provide. We must individually and consciously take up the responsibility of drastically reducing our use of oil and its by-products. We must also set up international tribunals that would try entities and individuals for their role in destroying the ecosystem. But more importantly we must begin to have the consciousness and think along the lines of building capacities within our communities to ensure as much as possible that the role of oil our energy matrix becomes inconsequential by investing more in renewable energy, energy efficiency, better public transportation and small decentralised energy projects.
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.
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