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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Nigeria's Petroleum Industry Reeling |
| 2004-08-09 |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Some rather indicative excerpts: Walter would not say whether it was Nigerian security forces or ethnic militants that the townspeople feared. Both groups are known to go on killing rampages ... Killing rampages typically make it difficult to conduct normal business. The report's authors made other serious conclusions: that Shell "exacerbates conflict" in the way it gives cash and contracts to delta residents and offers "stay-at-home pay" to disgruntled youths ... "The demand for and payment of cash to community youths for access fees, standby labor and homage, amongst others has been blamed for some inter-community disputes and for distorting genuine community needs," Buerk said ... Thugs and criminals rarely stay bribed, any multinational knows that. In recent months, Shell has created a new community development strategy to "abolish corrosive practices that currently impede sustainable development in communities, chiefly the pressure for cash payments for non-legitimate reasons, such as payment for 'ghost labor,'" Buerk added ... Such "lack of transparency" encourages villagers to fight Shell - and each other - for a share of the oil money, the report's authors concluded. Shell's "social license to operate is fast-eroding," the report said ... Shell's "social license to operate"? That one raises some red flags. Licenses are usually issued by the government. Delta residents complain their elected leaders have failed to fight poverty in the region. The residents, most of whom earn less than $1 a day despite the region's petroleum wealth, accuse oil companies of colluding with Nigeria's government to foment divisions between rival community groups in a strategy to deprive them of oil earnings ... Nigeria's oil production is supposedly able to generate millions of USD per day. If a small portion of that managed to trickle down to the population, a lot of these problems would likely go away. Shell et al seem to have taken it upon themselves to make all sorts of back-door deals with the locals, thus bringing a lot of this upon themselves. Since Nigeria's capitol, Lagos, routinely shows up on lists as the world's most corrupt city, what's happening in the delta is probably just a reflection of urban politics. Too bad the multinationals were so eager to start slicing up the pie that they didn't make sure there was a stable and transparent government in place before the drilling started. Many residents of the delta, increasingly awash with automatic weapons and rocket launchers, say they have given up hope of a peaceful resolution to the conflicts between armed gangs, soldiers and oil companies. All those weapons had to come from somewhere. How many of them were bought with oil company bribery? Here's a modest proposal. When these industrial giants go in and use graft or corruption to drive their expansion, make it illegal for them to write off any of their questionable dealings as a business expense or tax loss. These sort of asset drains should come straight out of the executive compensation and shareholders' pockets until they begin to vote in corporate oversight that doesn't mid-wife socio-economic disasters like this in the first place. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-09 20:22 |