|
Oil fund key to Niger delta wealth |
|
|
|
A NEW INITIATIVE based on the principles of resource rental and sustainable development hopes to redistribute the oil wealth from Nigeria's Niger delta.
 The proposed Niger Delta Fund will be similar to the successful Alaska Permanent Fund, which holds part of Alaska's vast mineral wealth in perpetuity, using the income to pay dividends to citizens.
The project is sponsored by Nigeria's Africa Center for Geoclassical Economics and Pennsylvania's Earth Rights Institute, who say the Fund will "bring economic prosperity to the region along with enhanced security incentives for uninterrupted oil production". It will use oil royalties to pay local people individual dividends. The remaining money will go for sustainable development loans, conflict resolution and conservation programmes.
Oil is vital to Nigeria's economy, but it has also brought social unrest, crime and corruption. In the past five years dozens of oil workers have been kidnapped, pumping stations occupied and cars and helicopters hijacked. Environmentalists say once-rich farm land and fishing waters have been devastated, and the delta's people are among the poorest.
Gordon Abiama, director of the Centre for Geoclassical Economics, believes this is because "oil revenues have not been distributed to the people of the region" and "a substantial portion of these funds have found their way into private bank accounts in western countries." Senator David Dafinone, chairman of the Union of Niger Delta People, has called for a trust fund for oil proceeds.
http://www.earthrights.net/nigeria/
|
