CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
|
Gabon |
SOCIAL ACTION
Workers of Port-Gentil revolt against unemployment and poverty
The unemployed of the city of Port-Gentil, Gabon’s business capitol, exasperated by broken promises made by politicians to reduce unemployment, recently erected barricades across the city to protest against the increase in unemployment and poverty. More and more families are affected due to the indifference of a government, which was supposed to stimulate economic activity in a city which produces most of the riches of the country, thanks to its oil industry.
Supported by their families, the unemployed turned their demonstration into a riot against the forces of law and order, whose intervention caused matters to get out of hand.
A forgotten business capital
The unequal sharing of the oil manna and the lifestyle of the government, thought to be excessive, opened the door to unlawful accumulation of riches. The situation is strongly resented by the masses of the lowly paid. In spite of the intention of the government to improve public finances and create new jobs, poverty and unemployment continues to increase among families in Port-Gentil as well as in other towns.
Of some forty companies, a dozen operators share the mining operations in Gabon. The two principal oil companies, Elf Gabon and Shell Gabon, ceased exploration activities some months ago because of the high cost of exploration. In the seventies, Gabon’s economy was dominated by forestry operations. Then the oil industry took over as a source of government revenue. At the same time, a great rural exodus towards the large towns began, among them Port-Gentil, which attracted a large influx of foreign workers for the oil industry.
There is still a paradox: The state has not invested enough in the oil town for the last forty years, thus depriving the people of the spin-off from the oil industry and the possibility of making a fresh start. But now the reserves of black gold are running out.
At the same time, on the national level, serious imbalances due to the down-turn of the economy, have become fully evident with the aftershock of the oil depletion. There were civil disturbances in Port-Gentil as far back as 1990, and after that, in spite of numerous strikes, because of the government’s inertia and the absence of an ambitious policy, the restart has not yet taken place. To top it all, the cost of living in Port-Gentil is higher than in all other cities in the franc zone!
Bitterness after electoral defeat
It should be remembered that in the 1998 presidential elections, the Port-Gentil province inflicted a heavy defeat on Omar Bongo’s party. Out of bitterness, the party in power paid very little attention to the problems of this cosmopolitan town of some 85,000 inhabitants, originally established by the French and now governed by the Gabon Progress Party, one of the principal opposition parties which is well established in the region.
Bad financial management, non-transparent use of oil income, non-compliance with the measures required by the providers of funds, and the unequal distribution of the country’s revenues, have created pockets of poverty, marginalisation of a large portion of the people of the country and particularly the people of Port-Gentil.
Veronique Laoui, a social worker, explains: «The unemployed wished to express their discontent with the policies of a lethargic government, in spite of their promises (not honoured) to improve the situation of unemployed youth.» Sylvain Mboumba, the spokesman for the unemployed commented: «It is unthinkable that a city which produces oil revenues large enough for a small country, should be neglected for years and that the social situation should have deteriorated so quickly amidst total indifference».
Gloomy outlook
In the economic capital, non-oil activities sink into the same gloom, particularly those private enterprises whose business gravitates round the auxiliary services of the oil industry. Unemployment affects nearly 25% of the heads of families in Port-Gentil, while in Libreville, the capital, it reaches 15%. Gabon’s citizens who were used to finding «made-to- measure» employment in the civil service, are practically not employed in the private sector, which is dominated by a large number of people coming from West Africa.
However, Port-Gentil has many companies specialising in wood products and auxiliary oil services. Among the principal companies established on the peninsula, besides Elf Gabon and Shell Gabon, there’s the Gabon Refinery Company SOGARA, whose large oil terminal situated in deep waters (15m) handles 64% of the country’s oil production, 12.7 million tons in 2000; the Gabon forestry company (CFG), which produces the best plywood in the world thanks to mahogany of which Gabon is the largest world producer; the Equatorial Wood Company (SEB), and other smaller forestry companies which find their place in the region’s economy.
Since the transfer from Port-Gentil of the offices of some oil companies such as Shell Gabon, which moved to Gamba in the same region, unemployment has risen steeply in Port-Gentil following the lay-offs and retrenchment of personnel, thereby paralysing the principal activities of the town. Recently, there were rumours that Total-Elf had cut back on oil exploration in Gabon -– in favour of the mega oil deposits in Angola, Congo and Nigeria. The TotalFinaElf group, however, is still trying to find oil in very deep waters.
The economic crisis, which has been striking the oil town since 1996, is the root of Port-Gentil’s troubles. The depletion of oil reserves has resulted in a slowing down of prospecting and a lowering of oil production. From 18 million tonnes in 1996, production has gone down to 14 million tonnes today. This decline has forced Elf Gabon and Shell Gabon to readjust their policies. Non-Government Organisations reproach the government for not having foreseen the worsening situation in Port-Gentil
Faced with the rising violence, President Bongo has been obliged to receive a delegation from the Port-Gentil community council led by its deputy Mayer, Pierre-Louis Agondjo. The head of state has instructed a ministerial delegation to go to Port-Gentil «to meet representatives of unemployed youth and local authorities, in order to investigate the situation and the possibility of implementing immediately government plans to develop the commune and generate employment.»
A press release from the Presidency stated: «While understanding completely the demands of unemployed youth, the head of state favours appeasement, and has requested all the communities residing in the city of Port-Gentil to calm things down.»
Port-Gentil is a cosmopolitan city where many local and foreign communities live. It well-known for its uprisings which had plunged the whole country in violence in 1991, following the assassination by people close to the government, of Joseph Redjambé Issani, one of the opposition leaders which broke away from the Gabon Progress Party.
ENGLISH CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 2001 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement