Senegal: Beware, the hydrocarbon buzz !

Senegal never thought of itself of being one day among the tropical emirates flush with oil and gas but suddenly it seems it is getting there with recent massive discoveries of oil and gas prospects. The country is already in the moon as even its President is calling for measures to be taken to handle this bonanza.
In a country long-used to believing that it is blessed owing to sacred religious figures resting in its sub-soil, there has been a rapid linkage, in a display of mysticism and superstitious mood, between the resource discoveries and the presence underground of those foregone leaders. God, some argue, could not forget Senegal in his wise dispatching of His goodies !
Wait a moment however. Resource-rich nations have not fared best in the league of nations...Some nations, only relying on their human resources, have done much better than most of them as illustrated by the case of Switzerland.
Questions therefore should be raised about the consequences and the conditions associated with this new development in Senegal before concluding it will change for the better the lives of the 13 million people living in this harsh, impoverished nation, located off the West coast of the continent...A sober assessment is the most urgent plan of action to start with to avoid throwing the country in the rank of the numerous resource-rich but failed nations littering around our planet...
In the Senegalese case, first of all, how can one forget the trail of curse unleashed in many African nations by natural resources? From Angola to Guinea, from Congo-Brazzaville to Sudan, from Nigeria to Liberia, resource-rich nations have gone through curse and dutch-disease associated phenomenon, while their leaders have gained expertise in looting national treasuries while closing their eyes on the need to build equitable and inclusive societies.
Is Senegal going to be one of those hapless nations or will it learn from models of good resource management as incarnated by countries like Norway or Australia?
At first glance, one can doubt it. To begin with the resource discoveries in Senegal have been made with the participation of such interlope figures like Frank Timis, as well that of Cosmos a dubious company whose activities in Ghana have generated wide cricitisms. Indeed in this newly-oil and gas rich country, but already going through a serious indebtedness crisis, Cosmos is known to be associated with powerful government figures in the Kufuor regime. Such outside partners, to which one can add the totally mysterious, operating in the dark, other key player, Cairn Energy, the first to have announced last year an oil discovery in Senegal, those actors do not announce a proper handling, in a transparent way, of this growing Senegalese bonanza.
How come also Mr. Aliou Sall, the brother of Senegal President, Macky Sall, have found himself to be partner in some of the oil companies involved in the resource discoveries. For a former journalist, despite furthering his education abroad, how did he gain this nose for news about oil and gas so as to even becoming the proud owner of one of the new oil societies in the country.
One can also wonder why there is no bonus signature in the oil and gas wells that have been found with commercially viable resources? Have those bonus been paid, and if so how can they are not tracked in the coffers of the national treasury? Millions of dollars have gone missing but not lost for some private pockets !
Senegal has started its new status with the wrong footing...Too bad. Indeed, if lessons are to be learnt, the first is that oil and gas have certainly lifted some countries out of poverty but they can come with very bad effects. Witness Saudi Arabia whose saga in hydrocarbons began in the late 1930s. Like it, all the resource-rich nations now struggling against the decline of the prices in the oil and gas industries bear testimonies to the volatility of these two industries. Those that have been wise enough to sterilize their income from such resource as Norway, to keep it in account for future generations or help out stabilize their economies in hard times, as now, have been able to cope well. But the majority of the nations endowed with such resources have not only been reckless, they have also grown dependent on them. No wonder they are no talking of diversification of their economies, as is the case in Nigeria where efforts are being made to revive the national agricultural sector while pushing for more growth in service sectors, like banking, insurance and telecommunications.
In the case of Senegal, the dark shadow over the discovered resource, the risk that this country ridden with corruption and the absence of expertise in handling this bonanza will only erode further the already weakened democratic basis as the leadership in place seems determined to high-jack the resources in conjunction with outside forces, actors. Explorations and licensing permits have been given without the knowledge of the population -or even that of the parliament. People are dreaming of a Saudi, lazy, lifestyle. The government is making them to day-dream. In the meantime, the sharks are operating. Stealing the resource. From the gas discovered two days ago by Cosmos, to Cairn Energy -which made last year of oil resource, there are reasons to be worried. The President whose energy adviser is an oil dealer (what a conflict of interest!), his own brother's implication and the dubious figures looming large over this new development are all figures announcing the rise of a new resource-cursed nation: Senegal ! In an age when the need to fight climate change generates calls to keep under ground some of the fossil fuels while the economic downturn and the glut generated in the oil industry by the excess production coming from Saudi Arabia, Irak, and soon Iran, while the oil schiste is make headlines in America, no doubt that it will take time before Senegal reaps the benefits of its new found wealth. But the dark shadow over their management is not a good omen to begin with...
*Adama Gaye, a senegalese writer, author on Africa-China, is an expert on oil and gas who graduated from Geneva international studies and has been a Fellow at the Dundee University's Center for Energy and Petroleum (Scotland). adamagaye@hotmail.com