Equatorial Guinea: Elites Hoarding Oil Revenues, Report Charges

The government of Equatorial Guinea has looted billions of dollars in oil revenue instead of improving the lives of its citizens, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Thursday.

The report, “Well Oiled: Oil and Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea”, details how the dictatorship under President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has used an oil boom to entrench and enrich itself further at the expense of the country’s people.
“Here is a country where people should have the per capita wealth of Spain or Italy, but instead they live in poverty worse than in Afghanistan or Chad,” said Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Programme at HRW. “This is a testament to the government’s corruption, mismanagement, and callousness toward its own people.”

Since oil was discovered there in the early 1990s, Equatorial Guinea’s gross domestic product (GDP) has increased more than 5,000 percent, and the country has become the fourth-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, living standards for the country’s 500,000 people have not substantially improved.

As one of the world’s newest oil hotspots, Equatorial Guinea, where oil was discovered in 1995, garners global attention as a valuable source of natural resources. The bulk of investment in the country’s oil industry comes from U.S.-based oil companies such as Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil, Amerada Hess, and Vanco Energy.
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Under the George W. Bush administration, relations with Equatorial Guinea warmed, despite the Riggs Bank corruption scandal and ongoing human rights violations.

“The Obama administration should take a different approach than its predecessor,” said Ganesan. “Instead of ignoring corruption and human rights in favour of energy interests, it can make it clear that good governance and respect for human rights is essential for energy security.”

AllAfrica