Questions abound as Kenya readies for oil production in Turkana

President Uhuru Kenyatta announced, after an agreement on revenue sharing was reached, that production from the Turkana oilfields would commence soon.

The agreement provides for the national government, county government and host community to share revenue on a 75:20:5 percentage basis. This removes the only hurdle that was left standing in the way after the other components of the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill were settled with minimal contention.

This is likely to see the Bill hurtle through the last stages of the legislative process and become law – the foremost piece of regulation in the exploration and production of petroleum and gas in the country.

The palpable excitement among many of the visible actors in the deliberations may be attributed to the desire to finally reap the financial promise of the historic oil find and the resources invested in it.

However, the discussions that should precede oil exploration and production in the country are a lot more complex than the negotiations leading to a revenue allocation formula. It should be rigorous and nuanced, not only focused on the infrastructure that will support communities but also lay bare the impact and the redistribution of costs and risks attendant to the project.

Predominantly pastoralists

The Turkana are predominantly pastoralists whose relationship with their land is based on kinship and lineage better known as 'ere' or 'ng’irerea.' The oil activities will certainly take, and in some cases have already taken, chunks of land away from any use by the community.

Even at the end of 30 years of production, a significant portion of the fields might become derelict due to severe land degradation. Will the five per cent allocation cater for the loss of livelihoods in the community’s various layers of territorial and grazing rights?

While communities would have hoped for a more favourable revenue-sharing formula, they have more pressing concerns. What happens to their grazing lands and water points now? Where do they graze after these lands are hived off?

Where do they get the necessary information on the petroleum project’s development, especially when very little of this information is available only in main towns or board rooms? The community is preoccupied with the environmental, social and cultural impact of the project and the place of inter-generational equity in this equation, but whether this too is included in the 5 per cent they are promised remains to be seen.

Considering that the affected communities have a direct stake aside from that of the county as represented by the county government, one would hope that they had a more direct representation in the agreement and that free prior and informed consent was not just that of the elected leadership.

Communities acquire knowledge and information necessary for making informed decisions only in an environment where access to that information, as guaranteed in Article 35 of the Constitution, is provided.

On issues of such grave importance, the national and county governments should have put in place systems and resources to educate the communities on the cumulative impact of the project and any agreements related to it.

Reliable information

It is from a point of reliable information that communities would engage in meaningful discussions leading to consent or refusal. In an interesting conversation, an old man said to me in reference to the revenue sharing deal, “If I am going to the market to sell animals and I tell you that I am going to give you five per cent as payment, yet you do not know for how much I am going to sell the animals, then would you be able to decide whether to accept the offer or not?”

That is exactly the place communities in Turkana County find themselves in the absence of access to information on the Turkana Oil project.

When the Petroleum Bill passes into law, the revenue sharing agreement will apply to the revenue accrued in the oil operations in the county, currently the only one with viable oil deposits. It is important that we extend some thoughts to ongoing exploration in other parts of the county.

The precedent set by the current process of agreements assume “community” as a homogenous entity with static interests while that of the State and corporations are dynamic. Have we, as a country, considered the external costs of these oil activities and who will bear this cost?

Distribution is a tricky business. We do not need to stray too far into the annals of history to know how the crises of redistribution has been the bane of meaningful development in Kenya. As Turkana stands on the cusp of a transition, once again we ask, whose oil?

Ms Ang’elei is the executive director of Friends of Lake Turkana, a grassroots organisation in the greater Turkana basin