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.

While a toast is quite in order as we inch towards the league of economies powered by the magical black gold, my mind sharply refocused on a question that has stubbornly gnawed at my conscience since March, 2012 when Tullow first made the breakthrough: How do we forestall the doom and gloom that similar discoveries have invariably triggered across Africa? How do we keep the African curse away from our looming oil boon?

Failing to plan is planning to fail, so it is said. As we count our blessings after decades of futile prospecting adventures, our excitement must neither cloud our vision nor scupper the meticulous planning and caution that must accompany our every step. We must keenly scrutinise the letter and spirit of every agreement we sign with any parties. We must review any old contracts with everyone and ensure the best interests of Kenya and the people of Turkana County are ironclad. There is no better time than now to reboot and reload our mining legislation. Now is the time for our oversight institutions to anticipate and arrest any possible pitfall.

The wise also say that those who do not learn from history are bound to suffer the misfortune of repeating its follies. Africa is replete with lessons of countries scarred and ruined by mind-blowing mega corruption, civil strife and environmental disasters borne out of their mineral windfall. And while many will instinctively point to the sad tale of Congo DRC as perhaps the natural example of this paradox, the most striking illustration of the enormity of this challenge is in fact Africa’s top two economies.

From the devastating 1966-70 Biafran civil war when Lt Col Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu led the Igbo-inspired secessionist Biafra against Maj-Gen Yakubu Gowon’s federalist regime in a fatal misadventure that claimed two million lives; to the chilling1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People; to mind-boggling tales of looting of oil revenues; to tragi-comical fuel shortages and some stunning disasters; to persistent unrest in the Niger Delta that is the oil fountain of the nation, Nigeria has struggled with the weight of its spectacular oil wealth.

Incredibly, the curse has bestrode all manner of regimes, whether military kleptocracies of the likes of Murtala Mohammed, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha or civilian regimes of Shehu Shagari, Ernest Shonekan and Olusegun Obasanjo. According to the World Bank, most of the country’s oil wealth gets siphoned off by one per cent of the population, with corruption rampart in government. While Africa’s most populous nation ranks high among the world’s top oil producers with hundreds of billions in oil revenue, a 2007 Amnesty International Report indicated that 70 per cent of the six million people of the delta states live in extreme poverty amidst the dazzling material wealth in the waters by their homes. Even as it exports huge volumes of oil, Nigeria still imports gasoline, which remains expensive with constant shortages. Oil multinationals Shell, Chevron-Texaco, Total, Agip and Exxon-Mobil wield alarming influence.

Down South, the deadly   August 16, 2012 Lonmin miners’ strike that resulted in the deaths of 44 people in Marikana near Rustenburg brought into sharp focus the subterranean ghosts that still disturb the centuries-old mining industry in South Africa. Most of the dead were miners killed in shootings reminiscent of the outrageous 1960 Sharpeville massacre. As summed up by the Bench Marks Foundation, “the benefits of mining are not reaching the workers or the surrounding communities...growing inequalities contribute to this mess”.

Forewarned is forearmed! Do you copy, Kenya?