Is Kenya prepared to handle its fast expanding oil wealth?

By Ababu Namwamba
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Last July, I was in Banjul, Gambia for the Africa Accountability Conference with delegates from Public Accounts Committees of Parliaments across Africa, hosted by the Western Africa Association of Public Accounts Committees (WAAPAC). Among the most riveting sessions was our deliberation on “The role of PACs in oversighting Extractive Industries”, an incisive interrogation of how Africa handles the extraction and utility of its enormous mineral wealth. With first-hand accounts of experiences from South Africa to Sudan, Uganda to Nigeria and beyond, the debate was both gripping and illuminating as delegates grappled with the challenge of what in Africa often presents the intriguing paradox of a “cursed blessing”. Sifting through online news from home later in my hotel room, I could not hold back a rueful smile on reading that Tullow, the British multi-national with apparent Midas touch in our long-drawn oil prospecting, had struck more oil deposits in South Lokichar, Turkana. The news got even better with the reported doubling of production estimates for the Twiga-1 and Ngamia-1 wells.