Source: Global Witness

7 January 2010 - A fair and transparent arrangement for sharing and monitoring the revenues from Sudan's oil fields is critical to preventing a return to war between the north and south, said campaign group Global Witness today, ahead of the 5th anniversary on Saturday of the peace agreement.



The civil war was Africa's longest running. Nearly two million people lost their lives and almost four in five southerners had to flee their homes at some point. While the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) put a stop to the worst fighting, the region has not been entirely stable, and 2009 saw an escalation of unrest. Two thousand five hundred people died in South Sudan last year as a result of violent conflict and Jonglei state in the south is currently more dangerous than Darfur [1].



The oil revenue sharing agreement that was the basis of the peace agreement comes to an end next year. There will also be a referendum on southern independence in which the south is likely to vote to secede, taking more than 80% of the country's oil with it.



"A future deal on oil revenue sharing is key to avoiding the return of full-scale war," said Rosie Sharpe, investigator at Global Witness. "Transparency - of which a first step is conducting an audit - will be needed for both sides to trust the agreement."



Under the current revenue sharing deal, the south gets half of the revenues from southern oil wells. This amounts to 98% of the southern government's budget. However, it is the north that controls information on the amount of oil that is produced. In a briefing paper published late last year, Global Witness revealed that the volume of oil reported by the Ministry of Finance in Khartoum was smaller than the volume of oil reported by the main oil company operating in the country, the Chinese state-owned CNPC [2].



"Any peace agreement that specifies how revenues from natural resources should be shared must enable both sides to verify that the sharing is carried out fairly. Currently this is not the case in Sudan and this lack of transparency is fuelling mistrust between the two sides," said Sharpe.

For the complete article, please see Global Witness.