Senegal Opposition Demands Greater Government Role in Oil, Gas

(Bloomberg) -- Senegal’s opposition will extend weekly demonstrations to demand President Macky Sall bolster state participation in oil and gas deals after allegations of fraud in the nascent industry..Ousmane Sonko, a former tax inspector who rose from obscurity three years ago to win third place in a Feb. 24 presidential vote, said the corruption scandal is galvanizing the opposition and civil society groups to demand changes in contracts with BP Plc and Total SA..Opposition politicians, students and labor unions have organized four rallies in the capital, Dakar, since a BBC report in June alleged that a brother of the president, Aliou Sall, received payments to guarantee a gas concession now operated by BP. One of the weekly rallies drew hundreds of people to the streets, while another turned violent after police fired tear gas to break up the gathering..“With or without a permit we will continue to demonstrate until these contracts are renegotiated to benefit our people,” Sonko, 44, said in an interview. “We need to rework all contracts like Bolivia’s Morales did over a decade ago.”.Read a related article about the corruption scandal.In 2006, Bolivian President Evo Morales sent troops to nationalize the South American country’s gas industry, renegotiating contracts with companies such as Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA to increase the state’s share of revenue. Morales, the last of a generation of leftist South American leaders, is vying for re-election in October..Sonko came to prominence in 2016, when he accused Sall of mismanaging the country’s new-found gas wealth, which is expected to transform Senegal into a hydrocarbon exporter in coming years. Sall’s government has denied any wrongdoing and defends its hydrocarbon-governance record. Aliou Sall has said he’s the victim of a smear campaign..Senegal may hold as much as 60 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.2 billion barrels of oil off its coast, according to a 2017 report by the Dutch Foreign Ministry..To contact the reporter on this story: Alonso Soto in Dakar at asoto54@bloomberg.net.To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, Andre Janse van Vuuren.©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Senegal Opposition Demands Greater Government Role in Oil, Gas

Bloomberg Quint