Chad’s president has threatened to expel energy giants Chevron and Petronas, two of the three consortium partners in a World Bank-backed project that was meant to serve as a model for oil extraction in Africa.
Idriss Déby accused the United States and Malaysian companies of failing to pay R3,2-billion in taxes and told them to make plans to leave the country. He also suspended three Cabinet ministers, including the oil minister, for their alleged roles in the saga.
Déby said that the companies, which are responsible for 60% of Chad’s oil production, had ignored an order to pay the outstanding taxes. ”Unfortunately, the government received no reaction from the partners … the representatives of Chevron and Petronas must leave Chad …”
During his televised statement Déby said Chad would assume the companies’ production responsibilities along with the main consortium partner, ExxonMobil.
The decision, which is widely viewed as an attempt by the government to control its oil output, is the latest setback for the controversial R34-billion Chad-Cameroon pipeline project. Despite Chad’s reputation for endemic corruption and opposition from human rights groups, the World Bank agreed in 2000 to back and partly finance a 900km pipeline that would run through Cameroon to the Atlantic coast. In return, Chad’s government agreed to use most of the oil revenues to alleviate poverty.
Chevron has denied that it owed back taxes, while Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said the state-owned firm would not have knowingly underpaid taxes. — Guardian Newspapers 2006