Oil shortages in oil producing countries is not Rocket Science

Why do most oil producing countries still experience oil shortages? The answer is as simple as adding 1+1!

Oil shortages in oil producing countries is not Rocket Science

By Opoka Christopher

 

Critics said we could not manage our independence. Our neighbors said we would kill each other. Others said they would help us rebuild our nation, when in fact they planned to come here, make some money and develop their own countries. So rightly all these and more have happened since 2005. We are failed state by many standards. Our government officials and private sector have continued to loot huge sums of money, usually better quantified in foreign currency, US $$$$. We have scored highest marks in some of today’s human rights violations. And the foreigners who have come to help us have continued to build mansions back home.

 

A good starting point is the uneven development in Moyo and Kajo-Keji. It is the same people doing business on either side of the border. It is the same people crying foul at each other. It is the same people switching allegiance during peace time or war. It is the same uneven development allover again. Enough of the Kuku and Ma’di. And Moyo and K-K!

 

Last year, I visited Unity oil field in Bentiu, Unity State. I discovered that heavy machinery for constructing a refinery were stuck in Mayom due to the heavy rains and the poor roads. An official representing the Russian company that was to construct the refinery told me that the oil in Bentiu was of good quality and could easily be refined into many product including diesel and petrol for running vehicles and generators among other machines.

 

At the GPOC campsite, we were told by officials that the plant was producing too much electricity from the crude that was being used to run the facility. And much of the electricity was being flared off. And yet Bentiu town remained without electricity except the noise of generator engines fighting in unison in their attempt to form chorus.

 

So our problem it appears is that while we have the resources, management issues fail us terribly and with bitter consequences. But we are not alone. Nigeria faces far more acute fuel shortages than us. Ghana has far more blackouts than us. A minute on the blackouts. We don’t need a blackout; we live and have lived in the dark for very long time. Many more of us are accustomed to candle and kerosene lamps to the extent that electricity in our homes would liken our experience to those of the man who lived all his life in a cave.

 

The problem with us South Sudanese is that we have failed to look at the bigger picture all the time. Looking at the bigger picture and asking questions about how we are able to produce billions of barrels of oil yearly and have a fuel shortage. We not only fail to ask these questions, but very often we don’t even demand answers when we raise eyebrows. This is not our first fuel crisis. When rains are heavy, we run out of fuel. When a river bank burst last year, we had another fuel shortage. This time, it was a clash of the titans when government wanted to put things in order with clearing and forwarding companies that we were blessed with another bout of our fuel shortage.

It is sad that a whole national minister and other officials must get muddled in the dirty politics of clearing and forwarding. But the fact is that in this country, putting things in place requires getting all dirty. How I wish the Minister for Roads and Transport would board a public transport to work one day to get a feel of the roads and the broad day light thuggery by our traffic police officers who are the kings of the roads and not Ministry of Roads and Transport officials. How ironic indeed. But its business as usual!

 

The intricacy of the Nimule border issue is interested to say the least. I am convinced that many of the briefcase clearance and forwarding companies are backed by government big wigs. There is saying that government officials are the biggest businessmen in the developing and underdeveloped world. This is equally true for our country. So who are these government officials behind these clearance and forwarding companies, how powerful are they? Are they generals in the army? Are they backed by tribal loyalties? Are they armed to the teeth?

 

We must move away from the idea that because politics has been a dirty game in our history, the governance and policy formulation and implementation must remain a preserve of the rich elite, an elite who are responsible for the huge and widening inequalities in the country. Few people are excessively rich and yet there is massive poverty. It is little shocking that we have joined a long list of oil producing countries where President serve for far longer than permitted in any democracy.

 

It has been argued that most revolutionary governments have a tendency to place too much trust in liberators and freedom fighters and as a result the onset of violence soon after liberation is common. Instead South Sudanese must stop blindly accepting the bandwagon drive that we are all SPLM. You first a citizen of this country with legitimate rights and aspirations! Whoever is in government thereafter must deliver on some if not all of your rights and expectations, be they SPLM in Juba, SPLM in DC or SPLM in the bushes. The challenges that they face when in office will be a matter for politics around election year. This is democracy as simple I can put it.

 

But we must start by suspecting politicians until they prove that they can be trusted. Leaders in the SPLM/A wanted South Sudanese to believe that they have help us and saved us from the wrath of the Khartoum government. This is false. Yes I have said it. Anybody who thinks they have been saved by the SPLM is stupid and should take a rope and hang. We all saved ourselves.

 

Politics of fuel are and should be a game for idle youth and not a national issue. How can we produce oil and have fuel shortages? How can all fuel stations be owned by foreigners? I have been informed that the Somali’s, Ethiopians and Eritreans running petrol stations all over the country are solely disguising the real business ownership, which are South Sudanese. I have my doubts. I know some South Sudanese are part of the company as per the legal requirement in business formation. Other than this, the South Sudanese is used to secure foreign currency from the Central Bank or from commercial banks. The South Sudanese also ensures that some taxes are avoided [legitimately by maneuvering the system or illegally by physical threats to tax authorities or coercion through bribes.] But ultimately it is the foreign business partners who benefit from any fuel shortages or any profits therein.

 

Thomas L. Friedman writes that “Iran’s President denies the holocaust. Hugo Chavez tells Western leaders to go to hell and Vladmir Putin is cracking the whip [in Ukraine]. Why? They know that the price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in the opposite directions. It is the First Law in Petro-Politics and it may be the axiom to explain our age.”

 

Our recurring fuel shortages are a good example of the realities of this first law in petro-politics. Our fuel shortages are not complicated as many would want us to think. Our Letters of Credit are a good start. Our tax officials are next. Our politicians have bloody hands!