/ 19 August 2007

Côte d’Ivoire compensates some toxic-waste victims

Côte d’Ivoire’s government has paid out more than $12-million to about one-third of the people poisoned a year ago when toxic fumes swept across Abidjan, officials said on Saturday.

But about 66 000 others are still waiting for their share of compensation after the dumping in August 2006 of hundreds of tonnes of petrochemical waste from a foreign ship killed 16 people. More than 100 000 people sought medical attention after the incident.

By Friday, 29 441 victims — just less than 31% of those to be indemnified — had received 6,51-million CFA francs ($12,3-million), the Ivorian Treasury Department said.

However, groups representing the victims have sharply criticised the payout scheme, which began on June 29.

The government has diverted most of the money handed over by the European-based multinational responsible for dumping the waste — nearly €121-million out of €152-million — to unspecified development projects.

”There is no cut-off date” for the remaining payouts, Treasury official Emmanuel Kalou said, adding that some of the indemnity applications had been rejected due to false claims. ”We have gone from a daily average of about 200 fraudulent claims a day to less than a dozen,” he said.

Families of the 16 victims who died from poisonous fumes were each to receive €152 000 out of the compensation package. Thousands of others who sought medical help were entitled to payments of a few hundred dollars each.

Almost exactly a year ago, the Panamanian-flagged Probo Koala, chartered by the Dutch-based company Trafigura, unloaded nearly 600 tonnes of caustic soda and petroleum residues that was then dumped by a local firm at 16 open-air public waste sites across Côte d’Ivoire’s economic capital.

Trafigura and Côte d’Ivoire authorities reached an out-of-court settlement earlier this year.

The unprecedented environmental disaster has yet to be totally cleaned up, with many of the sites still saturated with the deadly toxins. Côte d’Ivoire is still seeking up to €340-million to help with the cost of the clean-up. — Sapa-AFP