The impoverished African desert state of Chad entered the club of oil-producing nations yesterday when President Idriss Deby symbolically turned the tap that opened the flow of an estimated 900 million barrels of black gold over the next 25 years.
The oil will transform the economic life of the country, bringing in an estimated US$80 million a year of revenues to the population of seven million, whose average income is less than a dollar day, and increasing government income by 50 percent.
A consortium led by ExxonMobil with 40 percent, followed by Malaysia's Petronas (35 percent) and Chevron (25 percent) spearheaded the project to begin exploiting Chad's oil reserves, which includes a pipeline stretching more than 1,000km to Cameroon's offshore Kribi oil terminal.
On October 3, a first tanker bearing nearly a million barrels of Chadian crude left Kribi for the international market.
But the US$3.7 billion project has been dogged by controversy since Chad has been unable to shake off concerns over corruption and human rights issues since Deby ousted the dictator Hissene Habre in 1990.
In a plan approved after initial misgivings by the World Bank, Deby's government has agreed to submit to public scrutiny how the newfound wealth will be distributed.
The government has set up a revenue watchdog body and passed a law stipulating that 80 percent of the new petro-dollars must be allocated to priority development projects in health, education, agriculture and infrastructure.
Skeptical civic groups including members of the watchdog body, far from hailing the plan, have declared a "day of mourning" yesterday, saying the oil revenues will only "further strengthen the hands of repression."
There are fears, too, about the impact on the environment. Wells will be drilled, equipment installed, a power station built and landing strips constructed in one of the country's chief farming regions, raising fears that traditional lifestyles will be permanently changed.
One group claims that at least two people have died and hundreds of animals have been killed along the pipeline as a result of the dumping of toxic products by firms involved in the building of the pipeline.
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