by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.info)
Tel Aviv, Israel, December 18, 2005

An International Herald Tribune of 17-18, 2005, editorial, is titled “BREAKING THE OIL CURSE.”

It states that the World Bank intended Chad to become the exception “in the tragic history of striking oil in poor countries, where oil has fomented corruption, eroded government institutions, undermined the development of a middle class, cut jobs and led to wars.”

In 2003, the World Bank set up a system for Chad in which only 15% of the oil revenues would go into general government coffers. Most of the rest should have gone for fighting poverty or saved for post-oil years. This was intended as a test whether oil money could pay for medicines and schools rather than luxury cars and weapons. Exxon-Mobil was the oil partner.

Surprise - it did not produce the intended results - money disappeared. Now President Idriss Deby, claiming the government is broke, has decided to scuttle the restraints on his spending. He wants to double the percentage of oil money that goes to general government funds, scrap any saving for the future and allow the money earmarked for antipoverty programs to be spent on security.

My problem with above story is that I do not see any difference between the Idriss proposal and the way the Administration in Washington is running the US economy - who thought up the idea that the World Bank could tell Chad how to run their financial intakes anymore then telling Washington how to run theirs?

The IHT editors recommend: If the Chad project fails, the bank should reconsider whether it should continue to make oil loans in countries where governments are corrupt and citizens have no real powers - deals or no deals; this is sort of an oxymoron. The fact is that OIL CORRUPTS. It is not the corrupt government that was there at start - it is the outside intrusion asking to buy their oil that started corruption. The remedy is simple - stop the bank for investing in fossil fuels and mining projects. Extractive industries cause corruption, repression, and misery.

We wrote before - When You Find Misery - You Found Oil!