‘Where’s the oil?’ ask wary Tunisians

The rallying cry has tapped into a widespread sense of malaise four years on from the revolution, writes Eileen Byrne

Tunisians are demanding to know where the oil is through a social media campaign and a series of demonstrations such as this protest in Tunis last month. They want to see more transparency in the government’s management of its natural resources. Eileen Byrne for The NationalShow less

TUNIS // A campaign with the slogan “Where is the oil?” has spread like wildfire among Tunisian Facebook and Twitter users. It claims that due to mismanagement, or even corruption, Tunisians are being cheated out of much of the wealth generated by the country’s oil and gasfields.

Some observers see the campaign as a natural continuation of the anti-corruption sentiment that was behind the revolution in 2011. Other commentators have dismissed it as an attempt to manipulate an ill-informed public. They argue that the state’s management of hydrocarbon resources will withstand the new levels of scrutiny that followed the overthrow of the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

A crowd of up to 2,000 people marched through central Tunis on May 30 chanting slogans such as, “Open up the Files!” and “Where is the oil?”. They included middle-class professionals, students, labourers, housewives – and at least one retired army officer. A few brandished baguettes of bread, a symbol harking back to the revolution of 2011, as a reminder that many Tunisian families still live close to the bread line.

“There has been no transparency over contracts signed with foreign companies,” said Chawki Ben Salem, a 43-year-old high-school teacher. Also taking part in the march was Mohammed Cherif Al Qadi, 28, an activist with the I-Watch anti-corruption association, argued that transparency in the oil sector could set an important example for other areas of the economy.

The campaign began building momentum on social networking sites last month, taking its cue from a petition for transparency launched by an international NGO, the Natural Resource Governance Institute, under the title: “Where are our resources going?”.

It is not clear who launched the “Where is the oil?” campaign in Tunisia, but the rallying cry has tapped into a widespread sense of malaise four years on from the revolution. Many hard-pressed Tunisians are wondering why living standards still appear to be sliding, and fear that the cronyism and corruption that permeated the business world under Ben Ali is continuing.

In the poorer south of the country, where most of Tunisia’s oil and gasfields – both onshore and offshore – are located, support for the campaign reflects a sense that the country’s interior is not receiving a fair share of government spending.

The march in Tunis on May 30 and parallel protests in the southern towns of Tataouine and Tozeur were followed by a smaller rally in the capital on Saturday. Officials scrambled to explain themselves, devoting an unprecedented effort to addressing both public opinion and parliamentary opinion.

For Mohamed Akrout, chairman and chief executive of the state oil company, Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap), the campaign was an “ill-intentioned” attempt by “certain politicians to distract Tunisians from their true problems, and to make them believe that the country is sleeping on a sea of oil”.

Tunisia in fact has modest reserves compared to its neighbours Algeria and Libya, and is struggling with a falling output of crude – from 81,000 barrels per day in 2009 to 55,000 barrels in 2015, Mr Akrout told the news website espacemanager.com. This reflected a sharp decline in exploration activity, he added.

Supervision of oil and gas production is the responsibility of Etap and the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mines. Etap, under ministry supervision, may opt to take a financial stake in concessions as they go into production.

Two official reports since 2011 have raised numerous questions about management of the sector, both before and after the revolution. A report by the Court of Accounts in 2012 looked into the gas sector for the period 2007-2010 and found numerous areas where the state could be getting a better deal from its private-sector partners. These areas included: taxation; the auditing of companies’ accounting (especially exploration expenses claimed); how strictly companies were being held to the terms of their contracts; the pricing of gas; and royalties charged for use of the pipeline taking Algerian gas to Italy via northern Tunisia.

A second report, released in early May 2015 by government auditors and mainly focusing on the period 2007-2013, found anomalies including a gap between crude production figures logged for each field on the one hand, and figures for how crude production was allocated between the state and its private partners on the other. It noted the lack of a formal contract for crude sales that Etap makes to the state refining company, Société Tunisienne des Industries de Raffinage. It also zoomed in on the relationship between Etap and BG Tunisia, which is wholly owned by the UK-based company, BG Group. The report appeared to lend weight to arguments that Tunisian policymakers had made a serious mistake back in 1991 when they opted not to take a stake in BG Tunisia’s Miskar gasfield.

Tunisia’s new democratic constitution, approved in January 2014, states that all investment contracts allowing private sector companies to extract natural resources – oil, gas, phosphates and even salt – are to be reviewed by a parliamentary committee before being submitted to a sitting of the full parliament for approval. For legal clarity, the main legislation governing the sector is to be amended to include this new role for parliament.

Industry minister Zakaria Hamad, who has been in the job since February, attempted to reassure parliament’s energy committee on June 8 that his ministry was committed to good governance. “We have nothing to hide. Our only policy is that of transparency,” he said.

CUT FOR PRINT >>>Some ministry officials, however, say they do not welcome parliamentary vetting of oil and gas concessions, arguing that it will mean unnecessary delays.

But despite this, senior officials on the whole do appear to have understood that foreign investors are themselves under pressure to demonstrate new levels of transparency.

With the scale of corruption under Ben Ali now uncovered, at least in part, many foreign investors now carry out extensive research before entering into joint ventures with Tunisian partners – both private and public.

Last August, the industry ministry’s legal affairs director, Kais Mejri, acknowledged that reforms were needed to “re-establish the confidence of the wider public on the government’s management of natural resources”.

The “almost deliberate” lack of transparency “by the old regime ... touched almost all sectors of activity”, not just oil, he said.

But those opposition politicians who have added their voices to the ‘Where is the petrol?’ campaign insist that questions remain over decision-making under Ben Ali, and also about current governance.

“We are well aware that Tunisia doesn’t have enormous oil and gas wealth,” said lawyer Samir Ben Amor, a former MP and senior member of Moncef Marzouki’s Congress for the Revolution (CPR) party. “But that makes it even more important to exercise good governance over the limited quantities that we do have.” <<< CUT FOR PRINT