Officials of the imperialist financial institution said they were punishing Chad for passing a law that gives the government more access to revenues from an oil pipeline operated by ExxonMobil. Marco Mantovanelli of the World Bank’s Africa department said the new legislation was a “default on the loan agreement.” The accord obligated the government to devote a designated amount of its oil income to “poverty reduction.”

“This is totally unjustified,” said Chadian finance minister Abbas Mahamat Tolli in a January 13 statement, adding, “It is unacceptable that a nation should have its access blocked to revenues generated by the sale of its own natural resources.”

In 2000 the World Bank agreed to loan Chad $39 million to help finance a $3.7 billion oil pipeline operated by a consortium of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and the Malaysian state oil company Petronas. The pipeline runs from the Doba oilfields in southern Chad to the port of Kribi in Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea.

The condition for the loan was that Chad deposit all its royalty payments for the pipeline from the oil corporations in a Citibank escrow account in London, and that the bulk of these funds be spent on “reducing poverty.” This included 10 percent to be set aside in a “future generations fund.” An “oversight committee” including “nongovernmental organizations” has been charged with approving the spending. Only 15 percent of the oil revenue has been allowed to go to the nation’s general treasury.

The World Bank’s sanctions came after the government of Chad adopted a law ending the “future generations fund.” President Idriss Déby denounced the bank’s actions as an attack on the country’s sovereignty. He said the government wants access to some of the money for its overall needs, BBC News reported.

In a December 16 editorial titled “Breaking the Oil Curse,” the New York Times lectured, “Chad was supposed to be the exception in the tragic history of striking oil in poor countries, where oil has fomented corruption, eroded governmental institutions, undermined the development of a middle class, cut jobs, and led to wars.” Referring to the deliberations by Chad’s National Assembly on the proposed law, the editorial called on the World Bank to “reconsider whether it should continue to make oil loans in countries where governments are corrupt and citizens have no real powers.”

The big-business media and liberal advocacy groups have repeated this “oil curse” theme in relation to other African countries as well, from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea. Blaming poverty on government corruption in semicolonial nations, they appeal to imperialist regimes and the oil monopolies to enforce “transparency” and “accountability” to make African governments report how they use their oil income.

One unnamed member of a “nongovernmental organization” in Chad was even quoted in the French liberal daily Libération as saying that “this country is not yet ready to use its oil money.”

Few of these commentators, however, report how much of the oil wealth is pocketed by the imperialist oil companies.

Since large-scale oil production began in Chad in 2003, some 134 million barrels of crude oil have been exported and Chad has earned $399 million in gross direct revenues, the Reuters news agency reported January 13.

But the contract with the oil companies gives Chad barely 12.5 percent of total revenues, Agence France-Presse reported. Most of the rest ends up in the coffers of ExxonMobil and the other two oil conglomerates. ExxonMobil reported nearly $10 billion in overall profits for the third quarter of 2005, the largest in U.S. corporate history. Royal Dutch Shell took in a tad less, $9 billion.

In contrast, most of Chad’s 9 million citizens earn an average of less than $1 a day. In that former French colony, life expectancy is less than 45 years, and one in five children dies before the age of five. In Cameroon, the other supposed beneficiary of the oil pipeline, there are only seven doctors for every 100,000 people. Life expectancy is 51 years and infant mortality is 68 per 1,000 live births. Cameroon, previously colonized by Germany, France, and Britain, has a population of 16 million.

The oil income statistics don’t tell the whole story. Chad and Cameroon must devote part of those funds to pay back loans with interest to the World Bank and other foreign creditors that financed the pipeline project. Chad has a total foreign debt of $1.1 billion, while Cameroon owes the imperialist bankers $8.4 billion.

In addition, the pipeline has jeopardized the livelihood of many working people along the way. Farmers in the Doba region of Chad say they were denied access to their land or compensation, according to BBC News. In Cameroon, fishermen in the coastal town of Kribi, where the pipeline ends, say a reef was destroyed during the construction of an offshore oil facility.

“These people only cared about their pipeline and the money they will make from it, they cared little about us,” Agathe Mbedi, a fish seller in Kribi’s market, told Reuters. “They destroyed the rock that shielded the water in which fish used to breed. They promised to replace it, but have done nothing.” The oil consortium promised compensation, but people in Kribi said it provided only 70 nets for 2,000 fishermen.
 
 
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Imperialism, not oil, is curse in Africa  
 
 
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