Multinational miners: magnanimous or malevolent?

Minister Carr also refers to Rio Tinto’s Alucam smelter in Cameroon. Rio Tinto Alcan is working with the government to accelerate the construction of the huge Lom-Pangar Dam, a project that reportedly will displace 28,000 people. The government apparently is backing the dam because the country is in desperate need of new energy supplies, but the Bank Information Centre is concerned that the dam would have significant environmental and social impacts, and appears to respond to the energy demands of the expanding aluminium sector rather than the energy needs of the majority of the country’s population lacking access to electricity.

A June 2009 U.S. embassy cable, ‘Cameroon’s Lom Pangar is World Bank’s Dam Problem’, sums up the problem: ‘Lom Pangar is a prerequisite for the construction of new facilities along the Sanaga, including power plants at Natchtigal and Song Mbengue that Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto needs for the planned expansion of its refinery in Cameroon….The Lom Pangar project, and in particular the World Bank’s involvement, has invited controversy and criticism, especially from civil society organisations that argue the project would largely benefit Rio Tinto’s aluminium operations while exacting an unknown social and environmental toll. Although the proposed reservoir zone is relatively unpopulated, it abuts sensitive ecological zones, including the Deng Deng reserve that shelters protected species like gorillas. Additionally, the proposed reservoir would flood roughly one million cubic meters of wood in the catchment area. The government of Cameroon plans to harvest the wood, a task complicated by the expedited timeline and the difficulty of evacuating the timber….As we have seen elsewhere the, the Government of Cameroon’s inclination to rush project planning and disregard international standards has ended up delaying and further complicating the project….As the World Bank expert explained, the Bank also faces competing pressures. On the one hand, its senior management is increasingly scrutinising adherence to its own internal policies, so the Bank will be hard-pressed to give the Government of Cameroon a pass on its tough criteria.  On the other hand, as the World Bank expert explained, “if we walk away from Lom Pangar, we will be cut out of any future role in Cameroon’s power sector.” We will encourage the World Bank to remain engaged with the Government of Cameroon, but stand firm on its demands that the project adhere to international standards.’

To make way for the logging the indigenous Baka, who have been living in the forests of southern Cameroon for thousands of years, are being evicted from the forests which are of critical social, economic and cultural importance to them.

A July 2009 U.S. embassy cable confirms that: ‘The challenges of Cameroon’s power sector is largely that decision-making is all so interlinked and complicated, especially by political considerations. Most of the pressure to increase domestic power production, and do so quickly, comes from the narrow economic interests of Alucam. Certainly the development of Cameroon’s hydro-potential, said to be the second largest on the continent after DR Congo, is important for economic growth, but the pace and nature of the decisions are driven more by Alucam’s narrow economic interest than the dictates of proper planning and implementation.

This seems to contradict the World Bank’s claims that Cameroon’s Lom Pangar project will provide power to millions. Alucam consumes about 40 per cent of the national production, but pays 14 times less than the average consumer.

A 2008 U.S. embassy cable ‘Visas Donkey: Celestin Ndonga Corruption 212(f) Sao Request’ confirms that: Celestin Ndonga [public servant] requested a facilitation payment from Sundance Resources, an Australian iron ore project. Feeling uncomfortable with the request (which they perceived as inappropriate), Sundance officials initially pushed back, but finally agreed to a payment of about $600,000 to a “task force” established by the Prime Minister’s office that, they say, was structured in such a way so as to comply with Australian and American corruption regulations. Nonetheless, one Sundance official expressed discomfort with the deal, arguing that, although it was technically legal, he had no doubts that the funds are being used to line the pockets of Ndonga, members of the “task force” and the Government of Cameroon and their friends, hired as consultants….Post has received a series of allegations that Ndonga has used his official position…to steer business towards companies in which he has a personal stake….Ndonga’s rise has been meteoric recently, largely due to his willingness to use his official position to steward the business interests of Rio Tinto-owned Alucam.

Any payments that are being made to the Government of Cameroon by Australian companies should concern the Australian government, particularly now that Amnesty International has released its report confirming that people in Cameroon are being subjected to unlawful killings and torture as the authorities seek to use the criminal justice system to clamp down on political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists, and as a weapon to attack minority groups.

As an oil producer, the world’s fifth-largest cocoa grower and a place of significant international “investment”, one wonders why poverty in Cameroon has increased in its poorest areas and why the Cameroon government allocates only 0.2 per cent of its GDP to social safety nets. Then again, Cameroon is the 14th most corrupt country in Africa.

Namibia

Minister Carr revealed that 26 Australian companies operate in Namibia including Rio Tinto and Paladin. Namibia provides around seven percent of the world’s uranium oxide production and in 2009 was the fourth largest uranium producer in the world. Yet according to the United Nations Development Program ‘…the poorest 10 per cent of households command just one percent of the country's total income whereas the wealthiest 10 percent control more than half.’

Rio Tinto’s Rossing uranium project produces and exports uranium oxide to nuclear power utilities around the world. Did Minister Carr mention that the government of Iran holds a 15.01 per cent share in Rossing and has, according to U.S. embassy cables, refused all offers to buy its stake?

But what is more disturbing is revelations in a June 2009 U.S. embassy cable that there is a general paucity of environmental regulation governing uranium mining in Namibia, that there is no overall radiological or environmental baseline data for the Erongo region, that the government has failed to put in place regulations to govern the health and environmental effects of uranium mining and that if the supply of water and energy is not expanded in line with the rapid pace of the uranium boom, the mines and average Namibians may find themselves battling for the same scarce resources.