KENYA/FILE: Demand for better roads, schools and health centres soars in Kenya's far north, where the discovery of oil has prompted local activists to ask how the community will share in the profits

Record ID: 344208

  • Title: KENYA/FILE: Demand for better roads, schools and health centres soars in Kenya's far north, where the discovery of oil has prompted local activists to ask how the community will share in the profits
  • Date: 8th June 2012
  • Summary: TURKANA, KENYA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF TULLOW OIL EXPLORATION SITE IN NORTHERN KENYA
  • Embargoed: 23rd June 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Politics,Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVA2KL28ATEL5Y9MVJARTZD4X8F5
  • Story Text: Komote village in Marsabit county, Northern Kenya is several hundred kilometres away from where oil was recently discovered in neighbouring Turkana district, but news travels fast. Fishermen in this remote community of no more than about 15 families are already concerned about the ways the discovery might change the region.
    For years they have eked a living from the lake, eating fish and drying the skins for months when catch from the lake is low.
    But drought has taken its toll making food and water resources in increasingly short supply.
    Simon Arupe who is in his 40s, worries that contractors sent to extract oil will bring machines that could pollute the lake and threaten his only means of survival.
    "The government should follow up with the community about the oil because at the moment there is a lot of fear. The oil is still underground they haven't done the drilling yet but there is fear that when it starts the machines will use the resources from the lake. It's confusing, what we hear about in the news is different from what the government says," Arupe said.
    But not everyone thinks oil will be bad for the north of Kenya.
    Since announcing the discovery, both the government and Tullow - the Anglo-Irish firm drilling the area - have announced plans to fund education and health projects in Turkana. They have also promised better roads.
    The plans have been welcomed by community activists who have long argued better infrastructure will open up an area vulnerable to severe food shortages and reliant on aid.
    During last year's drought it was estimated as many as 1.4 million people in northern Kenya needed food assistance.
    "Oil is a blessing for us, we are happy. Because we know that it will change our lifestyle. It will actually… the government will make roads, the government will take a responsibility through that oil to take our children to school, even sponsor our students and other people that need to go to school. A lot of development you know, it is better than nothing, the way we used to stay without any resources that we can depend on," said Seline Ochampo, a community leader.
    Ikal Angelei is an environmentalist from Turkana who recently won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her work to save Lake Turkana from the effects of a mega dam being built upstream in Ethiopia.
    She says communities should not only expect better development as a result of the oil but also shares in the profits so they can financially benefit as much as the government and oil companies do.
    "If you have short-term, mid-term and long-term goals of development of a community, short-term would be build the classroom, hospital, water, the basic things. Mid-term is how do you increase the skills? So you have training for, whether its scholarships to leave the country, whether its really investing in going to Russia for education of something, that's fine. Then the third way is it has to be an investment that goes beyond the immediate need where the community now has a stake, they can decide what they want to do with the money," said Angelei.
    She is currently fighting to have documents relating to the transfer of land in the area where oil was found made public.
    "Everybody is playing everybody and the people that are going to suffer is the community. It's community land, it's held in trust by the county council. So the county council has got to be in this discussion from the beginning. One of the things we're asking is for all the players to come on the table and all the documents to be released," Angelei said.
    In Nairobi, excitement about the discovery of oil has been tempered by fears that bad management of the resource could send Kenya the way of other oil producing countries where the riches have encouraged greed, violence and corruption.
    Of particular concern is the large numbers of guns in northern Kenya, an area known for armed conflict between warring ethnic communities.
    Mohamed Elmi minister for northern Kenya and arid lands told Reuters, keeping the community in the oil area happy was a number one priority for the government. He worries angering and marginalising people could encourage an individual like Uganda's rebel outlaw Joseph Kony to spring up and make trouble.
    "We are aware that the area is full of small arms, Upper Rift Valley, that is Pokot and Turkana alone, and Samburu, it was estimated that there were about 200,000 guns a few years ago, that's 2005/2006. So at the moment we don't know how much that is, so we don't want a (Joseph) Kony type individual coming up and saying this is our resources and making problems," the minister said.
    He estimates it could take years for profits from the oil to have an impact on Kenya's economy but argues that the time to act is now.
    "I think we have a window here that we can do things properly and there's enough experience around and the days of cowboy companies are also gone because the majority of them are listed and the reputation is very important for them. So I think Kenya will not be like those other countries, particularly with our new constitution," he said.
    Back on the dusty desert planes surrounding Komote village, oil hasn't yet changed the way people lead their lives but it has certainly changed Turkana's reputation.
    Once seen as a remote and resource hungry part of Kenya, it now boasts potential wealth that could make it one of the richest regions in the country. The question now is how that wealth will be managed.
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