CHAD:
Government gets first payment for oil exports
ABIDJAN, 27 November (IRIN) - The government of Chad has received its first US $6.5 million
payment for oil exports since crude began flowing down a 1,070 km long pipeline to the coast of
Cameroon in July, the
World Bank said.
The money was deposited in a special escrow account at Citibank in London where the government can
only access it pay for socially useful projects, mainly in the areas of health, education and rural
development,
it said in a statement on Wednesday.
All withdrawals from the escrow account must be sanctioned by a special oversight committee,
consisting of representatives of the government, the supreme court, parliamentand civil society.
This watchdog mechanism was put in place by Chad's parliament in 1999 at the behest of the World
Bank to prevent the poor country's oil revenues from being squandered on military spending or being
siphoned off
into private pockets.
According to Transparency International, Chad is one of the most countries in Africa. It is also one of the
poorest, ranking 165th out of 175 countries listed in the United Nations Development Programme's
(UNDP) Human Development Index. The Bank of Central African States estimates that Chad has a
gross domestic product per capita of about $270.
The oil revenue management law specifies that 10 percent of net government revenues from the new
Doba oilfield in southern Chad must be paid into a Future Generations Fund. Most of the remainder is
earmarked for
health, education, social and infrastructural projects and rural development. Only 13 percent of the money
is allocated to the Treasury's current account for other projects of the government's own choosing.
The World Bank said the US 3.7 billion oil development project in Chad, which is led by the US oil
major ExxonMobil, should generate US $2 billion in revenue for the country over the next 25 years.
The Doba oilfield is expected to reach full production of 225,000 barrels per day by the end of March
2004, but ExxonMobil and its partners ChevronTexaco and Petronas of Malaysia are continuing to
search for more
commercially exploitable oil deposits elswhere in the country.
CHAD:
Oil boom raises expectations, but fails to meet them
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations]
DOBA, CHAD, 20 October (IRIN) - Poverty-stricken southern Chad is
straining under the pressure of thousands of economic migrants who have
flooded into the region looking for jobs in the country's new oil industry.
The oil began flowing from landlocked Chad down a 1,100 km long
pipeline to an export terminal on the coast of Cameroon in July, but the Doba
oilfield was officially inaugurated by President Idriss Deby on 10
October.
As he pulled a lever to let crude oil flow onto the international
market, Deby told Chad's eight million people that "you can't eat oil,"
implicitly warning them that the bonanza would not solve Chad's many
problems overnight.
The country has a long record of civil wars, ethnic conflict and deeply
entrenched corruption. With per capita income of just $267, it ranks as
one of the poorest in the world
But Deby's message came too late for thousands who have abandoned
cattle herding and cotton farming to pursue the dream of oil jobs which just
do not exist.
Nowhere is this tension more obvious than in Komé Atan, a settlement
which sprang up outside the razor-wired gates of Esso's oil processing
plant. This is where the new pipeline begins its long journey through
dense jungle to a floating export terminal in the Gulf of Guinea.
The name Kome Atan stems from the French "attend" meaning "wait" but
local residents have their own name for this bleak village - "Komé
Satan," because it is crawling with prostitutes and criminals who have been
drawn by the lure of easy dollars.
As dusk falls just after 17.00 GMT, floodlights inside the Esso base
assist the oil lamps outside the brand new brick buildings of Komé Atan
which have replaced the temporary wood and thatch structures alongside
the red dirt road. Music roars from inside a large bar which is painted
in the yellow logo of Castel beer, imported from neighbouring Cameroon.
Even at this early hour there is a large crowd of young men and women,
many already drunk.
Health workers say the combination of bars, prostitutes and truckers
bringing supplies to the base has made Kome Atan a breeding ground for
HIV/AIDS. Ellen Brown, a social anthropologist working for Esso says the
US company has restricted workers' access to the temptations of the
boom town by introducing a curfew and using American style school buses to
take staff directly to their living quarters at the end of shifts.
"You can't change human nature," she says. "So we have funded
programmes such as free condoms and AIDS tests".
Esso, the operating arm of US oil giant ExxonMobil, and the World Bank
also backed a theatrical education project in which a deathly character
called "Mr Aids" is put on trial for spreading the disease. He is found
not guilty after his victims admit to not protecting themselves by
using condoms.
For the communities native to Chad's southern region the invasion of
foreign men to drill oil wells and build pipelines has brought extra
competition for jobs and disruption to the social fabric.
In the small town of Belabo, 20 km from Komé, people complain that the
price of food in the market has risen because of increased demand from
people earning good wages in the oil industry.
And in nearby Bebidjia the huge increase in traffic on the dirt road
throws up clouds of dust which coat people, houses and crops with a layer
of red dirt. Esso has tried watering the roads and even dumping down
molasses to control dust because it is too expensive to tarmac the roads
linking its different oil sites.
However, the issue causing most anxiety is the lack of jobs. Local NGOs
organised a day of mourning in the capital Ndjamena to coincide with
Deby's official inauguration of the oil pipeline to highlight the anger
of local people who have seen many non-skilled and semi-skilled
positions go to foreigners. Esso admits to currently using Filipino staff on a
temporary basis due to the lack of trained Chadians.
A smaller protest was also held by a group called Les Chomeurs de la
Zone de Doba (The Unemployed of Doba Region) who claimed that nepotism
was rife in the allocation of jobs.
Brown, the oil company anthropologist, dismissed this allegation,
saying that a "job lottery" was deliberately used in to order to recruit
villagers without bias. "When we needed unskilled workers we would go to a
village and put the names of those who wanted work in a hat. Then a
child or someone who couldn't read would pull out names. We employed those
people and went to a different village the next time," she told IRIN.
Esso said that at the peak of construction work one year ago it
employed 7,600 Chadians. During the four years it has taken to build the
necessary infrastructure for the US $3.7 billion oilfield and pipeline,
local employees earned a total of almost $75 million in wages, it added.
Refuting claims that most of the jobs offered to local people were
short-term and unskilled, Esso said two-thirds of the Chadians it employed
were in skilled, semi-skilled and supervisory positions. However, as
construction work tails off, the oil company will only provide permanent
jobs for about 500 of them.
Several oil service companies such as Pride and Schlumberger have taken
on and trained a small number of Chadians in engineering, computing and
other highly skilled roles.
One of them is Ousman Maloum, a civil engineer who studied in Nigeria
where he learned to speak English. He is now working as a radio operator
and translator following several months of training in Europe. "The oil
industry is a very good game," he says. "In times to come I will have a
professional future".
But a Antoine Berilengar, a priest working for the development NGO
CEFOD (Centre d'Etudes et de Formation pour Developement), said cases like
that of Maloum, who has managed to cross the divide between third and
first worlds, were the exception rather than the rule.
"There is tension between these two worlds," he said. "Esso's world is
like Houston, while people nearby are living in pitiful conditions.
They see outsiders come in and they say, why? We are here, why don't we
benefit from this project?"
The resentment felt by local people who have failed to share fully in
the benefits of oil development has sparked a separatist rebellion in
Angola's oil-rich enclave of Cabinda and increasing violence by ethnic
militias in Nigeria's Niger delta region
The World Bank says measures have been taken to ensure that the revenue
from Chad's oil does benefit the local people. However, it will take
years rather than months for this to make a major difference to their
lives.
As President Deby declared the new oilfield open, he pledged to support
the new Revenue Management Law and Oversight Committee which was put in
place at the World Bank's insistence to ring-fence the money earned
from oil revenues for specific development projects.
A nine-member committee including, crucially, representatives from the
civil society will oversee the spending of the $80 million or more
which Chad will earn each year once the Doba oilfield reaches its full
production of 225,000 barrels per day next year. Education, health, rural
development and infrastructure have been enshrined in law as the top
priorities.
Currently, three oilfields in the Doba region are being exploited. The
largest lies directly beneath the Komé facility. The others are at
Belabo, 20 km distant and at Mioundou 30 km away.
But ExxonMobil and its partners, ChevronTexaco of the US and Petronas
of Malaysia, are betting on finding much more oil in other parts of the
country, helped by the relatively low cost of onshore drilling.
"I look at this as just the start of the oil industry in Chad" said Ron
Royal, the head of Esso Chad. "In this business we are always looking
for more fields. In addition to the three fields we are currently
exploiting, we have discovered four or five more which are being developed
now. We have further exploration planned for 2004 and 2005 where we're
looking for discoveries to come on line after the ones we've already
made".
The first 950,000 barrel consignment of Chadian oil is already on its
way to the international market and Chad's revenue from the sale is
expected to arrive in a London bank account in November.
Esso's Royal predicted that Chad's oil industry would still be going
strong in 60 or even 100 year's time, hopefully, in a social landscape
where prosperity has replaced poverty.