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Article

28 Sep 2019

Author:
Mohammad Yusuf, Voice of America

Advocacy group urges for more transparency as Kenya exports its first crude oil shipment

"Activists Want Details on Kenya Oil Contract with Chinese Firm"

fter years of exploration, Kenya last month exported its first crude oil shipment, worth about $12 million, through a deal with the Chinese petrochemical company ChemChina. Amid the excitement of Kenya joining the list of oil-producing countries, some civil society groups are demanding transparency, calling on the Kenyan government to show how the Chinese firm won the bid to buy the oil and to reveal how much revenue the company is getting from the sale.

 Charles Wanguhu, coordinator of the Kenya Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gaswhich lobbies on behalf of civil society organizations, said the sector faces an ongoing challenge with “a lack of proper disclosure." Kenya’s Ministry of Energy & Petroleum “indicated there was a bidding process for the oil, but we have not had access to any of the bidding documents,” he said, noting the ministry has not disclosed which other companies bid and what they offered. “We were asking for a more transparent process of these biddings [so] that we could say the country got the best deal.”