Globalization
- Thu Jul 24 2003
By Grace A. Tongrongou N'DJAMENA, Jul 22 ((IPS))
''They say oil is spurting out of the ground, but I haven't seen it yet, says Faustin Gayande, a young man from the Chadian capital of N'djamena. He fears oil revenues will not trickle down to the poor as a result of corruption and political repression. ''There is a proverb from my area which says that when you catch a silurid, you've got to grab it by the head if you want to hang onto it; if you hold it by the tail, it could slip away''. So Chadian oil is like a silurid because I haven't been able to grab it,'' says Gayande. Silurid is a kind of black catfish, with a big and wide head, that lives in freshwater.
Concerns about oil revenues are widespread. ''The revenue from the oil needs to be properly managed. We have succeeded in creating a body that will deal with Control and Monitoring of Petroleum Revenue following pressure on the World Bank,'' says Dobia Assingar, chairperson of the Chadian League for Human Rights. The World Bank is promoting the poverty alleviation potential of the programme that could yield two billion U.S. dollars in revenues for Chad and 500 million U.S. dollars for Cameroon over the 25-year production period.
Assingar regrets that the poor have not benefited from the 3.7- billion-U.S.-dollar 1,070-kilometre pipeline that runs through southern Chad to a terminal off the coast of Kribi in Cameroon.
''The only thing they have got out of this project is dust from the construction sites. Now that the crude is flowing, the body needs to get serious with its job,'' he says. Chad has a population of around eight million, with 80 percent living below the poverty line of one U.S. dollar a day. The Chad-Cameroon pipeline project involves ExxonMobil, Chevron, Petronas (the Malaysian state oil company), the World Bank and the governments of Chad and Cameroon. Last week the oil firms had a trial run from the Miandoum oilfields in southern Chad. Drilling is still taking place in Kome and Bolobo oilfields, also in the south. Once completed, the three oilfields will produce a combined 225,000 barrels of crude oil per day, starting in December.
By 2004, the pipeline would increase government revenues by 45-50 percent per year in Chad, where per capita income is 200 U.S. dollars and illiteracy is over 50 percent, according to the World Bank. The Chadian government says it will put 10 percent aside in a fund for future generations, five percent into development of the petroleum industry, and 80 percent into education, health, social services, rural development and infrastructure. In a statement, announcing the pipeline's trial run, the government expressed its ''satisfaction and gratitude to the World Bank which, in spite of controversy, continued to support the project because of its importance to Chad in its fight against poverty''.
It also congratulated the ''consortium of oil companies, consisting of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Texaco, and Petronas, for its efforts to satisfactorily complete the first phase of the project, and most importantly for honouring its environmental management and socioeconomic commitments''. Rex Tillerson, vice president of the ExxonMobil Group, expressed satisfaction with the construction work. ''To date, worker's safety on the project has been exemplary, with more than 50 million work-hours clocked in and not one accident requiring shutting down work on the drilling and construction sites''.
Unlike his Chadian colleagues, Aliouda Limane, of Mission Aviation Fellowship in N'djamena, is happy with the project.
''Chad's oil production will increase the number of our flights. ''Non- governmental organisations, working with us, are going to make more trips than before, and this should allow us to make more money and increase our salaries,'' he says. Berenice Rimarne, a petty trader in N'Djamena, agrees. ''Thanks to the money the oil is going to bring in, buying on credit will be a thing of the past. People will have enough money to pay cash for my goods. Right now, we're really suffering; people buy on credit and you practically have to run after them to collect your money. So I'm hopeful that the oil money is going to help us,'' she says. To mark the official opening of the pipeline, inauguration ceremonies will take place at the end of September in Chad and at the end of October in Cameroon.
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