Tullow Oil has ended up having pay $313m (£195m) to Uganda for permission to sell stakes in three giant oil fields to France’s Total and China’s biggest oil company and Ugandan parliament is asking the questions  -  Legislators want to see the Tullow Oil Deal Agreements but are they being fobbed off ?  Legislators yesterday tasked the government to explain the status of Uganda’s oil and gas wells and reports that Tullow Oil had sold part of the wells to two foreign companies.

The MP for Lwemiyaga County, Mr Theodore Ssekikubo, raised the concern as a matter of national importance and questioned why Tullow Oil had sold the oil wells to China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Total, a French oil firm, without Parliament’s knowledge. “The wells have been sold by Tullow Oil to a Chinese and French company at $2.9 billion yet we are not in the know. Since we have cabinet ministers represented here, when shall we be availed with copies of the sale agreement?,” Mr Ssekikubo asked.

Mr Henry Banyenzaki, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Forum on Oil and Gas, informed the House that all oil related problems should have been solved if the government had put in place the Oil Revenue Management Bill.

“”How far have you gone in as far as tabling the Bill is concerned,” Mr Banyenzaki asked. The Parliament Chief Whip, Mr Daudi Migereko, however, saved the situation when he informed the House that the government would give a statement clarifying on the matter. “I have been directed by the Prime Minister that I contact the Ministry of Energy to come up with a statement on the transaction,” he said.

He said the Energy Minister, Mr Hillary Onek, would on Tuesday give a statement on the status of the oil wells. Tullow Oil is set to challenge the Shs1.1 trillion tax that the government wants from the sale of its interests in Uganda to the CNOOC and Total. read more here  http://www.ugandacorruption.blogspot.com/ and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8416757/Tullow-stumps-up-Heritage-tax-money-to-clear-Uganda-deal.html

By Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com
Facebook Melanie
twitter @oblogdeeoblogda

01/28/2011 by JR Russell

One year ago, I reported that an Irish company, Tullow Oil, were readying an investment of 1 billion euro in Ugandan oil interests.

We tried to contact them.

We even goaded them a bit. No dice.

Nobody from Tullow Oil — named after a town not far from where your friendly, non-oil-company biting-blogger is sitting right now — wanted to answer the question that seemed so natural:

How could anybody invest in a country that had just proposed legislation that would execute homosexuals and their defenders?

John McGuirk, the only not-gay Irish blogger that picked up on this story, had this to say at the time:

I’m not Gay, and advancing gay rights has not been the cause of my life, but I wonder if this was a white supremacist Government imposing apartheid in Uganda whether the degree of international action would be the same.

Indeed.

But it seems on the scale of corporate responsibility, while Tullow are happy to throw some pennies at mosquito net charities, they are not interested in using their influence to prevent the murder of LGBTQ Ugandans (who presumably may find themselves employed by Tullow). Mosquito nets wouldn’t have helped David Kato when he was bludgeoned to death after his photo was published in a tabloid paper.

In fact, Tullow’s presence in Uganda as possibly making things a bit harder for those trying to press for change. The infamously terrible contracts between Tullow and Uganda are still secret, and Uganda is still dragging journalists off to prison if they try and press for access, but the Ugandan people believe, largely, that Tullow Oil’s discoveries will bring wealth to their country and that they will no longer be dependent on other countries. Threats of sanctions are met with shrugs of indifference.

As Giles Muhame — editor of the vile rag that published the photos of hundreds of men (including David Kato), alleging they are homosexual (a crime in Uganda) and calling for their hanging — said to our own Mel Nathan,

Soon we will have enough of our own oil and we will not need America or outside Countries.

The Anti-Homosexuality bill may not have passed yet. But its introduction copper fastened a new era of government-approved violence against Ugandan LGBT people.

Wednesday, outspoken gay activist, David Kato Kinsule, was found bludgeoned outside his unfinished home, which he’d already equiped with security cameras and an alarm.

And as I type, sources are confirming that Brenda Namigadde, a Ugandan woman who was due to be deported back to Uganda this very night was being given reconsideration. I dare say she owed the reconsideration to the young man who was buried today amidst preaching and hatred, carried to his grave by the only people who would lay his body to rest: his LGBT community.

But with the BBC reporting that the deportation is still set to go ahead, we have another case of corporate complicity in the murder of LGBT Ugandans. As Emily Dugan, of the Indepenent on Sunday, asks on Twitter:

So after one year, what has changed for Uganda’s gays? It would seem very little, besides the body count.

Update: The BBC are now reporting that the deportation is not going ahead tonight.

Any Tullow or Virgin Atlantic company reps looking to have a chat can feel free to email me on CanuckJacq@gmail.com. I don’t bite. I don’t even misquote or twist stuff. I just have questions.

Katherine Haywood in today’s Daily Monitor reports on the controversial and secret Production Sharing agreements in place between Heritage Oil and the Ugandan government.

The April 2009 Ernst & Young report compiled for the Government of Uganda reveals that Article 33 of the Production Sharing Agreement between Uganda and Heritage Oil & Gas specifies that “if there is any change, or series of changes, in the laws or regulations of Uganda which materially reduces the economic benefits” of the company, the government must make substantial economic compensation.
from the Daily Monitor, Uganda

The findings are part of the ongoing research into the deal by activist group PLATFORM and, “a coalition of 14 Ugandan non-governmental organisations”.

This means of course, Ugandans will lack the ability to legislate for working hours, workers rights, environmental concerns and production standards among other things, without compensating the company. Heritage Oil have the PSA in question now, but an agreement to sell to Irish/UK Tullow Oil is almost complete.

There are also substantial concerns about the actual return on investment Uganda will see from the agreements. While the government has claimed 80 per cent as the figure, reports from PLATFORM have indicated that the figure could be as low as 47 per cent, depending on market variables, and at the very best, 79.5 per cent in an unlikely scenario.

The Daily Monitor managed to get a comment from Tullow Oil‘s Business Unit Manager (just think of the acronym fun) in Uganda, Brian Glover.

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BusinessWeek reports today that Uganda has decided it has no choice but to finance the building of a new hydropower plant themselves when efforts to attract investors failed.

The Karuma hydropower plant will be a 500 watt plant as opposed to the 200 watt plant that was planned before Norway’s Norpak Power Ltd dropped out of the project in 2008.

Only five percent of the Ugandan population are connected to the national grid, and electricity is prohibitively expensive for most.

Unfortunately for Uganda, they will have to come up with the USD $1.3 billion.

Recently, Heritage Oil decided to pull operations from Uganda as well, selling its shares of the Lake Albert oil blocks to Irish company, Tullow Oil.

Uganda’s Minister of State for Investment, Aston Kajara, has previously expressed concern that foreign companies may be dissuaded from investing in Uganda while they are inventing new ways to violate human rights with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Related posts:

• Ugandan court rules Oil contracts to be kept secret (lezgetreal.com)
• Uganda’s “kill the gays” bill is also a “kill the straights” bill, and blames uncensored ‘net (boingboing.net)
• On Forth.ie: Uganda, It’s not a democracy if you can’t prove it (lezgetreal.com)
• Uganda fears foreign investor backlash on anti-gay bill (lezgetreal.com)

I’ve written a piece over on Forth.ie that disusses the direction Uganda is taking with regards transparency, freedom of the press and the much discussed oil deals.

Forth.ie

The lack of transparency carries over as well into the lies that are being spread about the gay rights movement. Gay rights opponents have spread the word that rights groups are using foreign money to recruit Ugandan children, that homosexuality and paedophilia are linked and that homosexuality can be “cured”.

These lies have spawned what we now know as the Kill-the-gays bill or the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 which makes the already criminal act of homosexuality punishable by life in prison, or for repeat offenders, death.

Please head on over and comment too. Forth magazine has some great reads, and I was really chuffed to be able to contribute.

ON TUESDAY February 2, the Ugandan blogger known only as Gay Uganda, sent a Twitter message to reassure his followers that no harm had come to him. His silence had been caused by an all-too-common-in-Uganda power cut.

In Uganda, only five per cent of the population is connected to the national grid. Prohibitively expensive, electricity in resource-rich Uganda heavily relies on costly imported fuel, despite natural oil seepage, and the first oil well that was dug in 1938. World War II intervened and only in the 1990s did interest turn again to Uganda’s vast natural resources. This might have been the luckiest thing that ever happened to Uganda.

by CanuckJacq

It’s true… I actually have a life that has nothing to do with Uganda, the UK Equality Bill, the Irish Blasphemy Law or indeed Iris Robinson.

As such, I’m going to cheat a little and submit an update post to cover the billion or so stories coming out of the busy country called Uganda.

Most recently: CNOOC have gone into partnership with Tullow Oil, who have had their offer approved by the Ugandan government, who previously favored Italy’s Eni for the deal.

Also the government have said they will make the details of the Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) available to government ministers, but a court in Kampala has rejected a bid by two Daily Monitor journalists to have the details made public. As these agreements have already been leaked and analysed, it will be interesting to see what government ministers make of them.

One of those two journalists has also been arrested on charges of Criminal Libel. He has been released on bail and it could be quite some time before he faces any kind of proceedings as the law of Criminal Libel is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court. AFP reports that several journalists at the same paper face charges.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill appears to have the support of a full 83% of Ugandans, according to a television poll. They do, however, support it on the basis of claims being made that outside money donated to gay Ugandan organisations is being spent recruiting children. There seems to be little belief, even among Ugandan liberals that this claim is simply false. In this blog post, the blogger, Julius Barigaba,  argues that while it is wrong of homosexuals to recruit, it is equally wrong for heterosexuals and religious people to recruit children.

US President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed the matter while attending The Family-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast. Over the last couple of weeks there was a flutter of drama over whether or not the sponsor of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, MP David Bahati, would attend. He did not. There were questions as to whether Obama should attend an event sponsored by the secretive religious group.

This week, Moses, a gay man from Uganda, spoke to a news conference about his experiences as a gay man in Uganda. He wore a paper bag over his head because the proposed legislation in Uganda would mean that as a Ugandan citizen, coming out anywhere in the world would be an extriditable offense (would the US really comply?) and then he could be charged, incarcerated and even executed in Uganda. This hateful legislation means freeom nowhere for Ugandans.

I’m not the first person to seriously wonder, without taking the importance out of the anti-gay bill — it is reprehensible and will hurt gay Ugandans regardless of its purpose — whether it is simply a convenient and populist smokescreen, to keep the public afraid and upset about homosexuals and far less likely to press their government on the shady details of their oil contracts, and other corruption concerns ahead of the 2011 elections.

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by CanuckJacq

The Ugandan government has formally approved the deal for Tullow Oil to take over Heritage Oil’s share of 2 blocks in the Lake Albert region.

This decision ends the bid by Italian company, Eni, to buy out Heritage’s share of the project.

Uganda is working very hard to be seen as a country friendly to investors, and its court has ruled that the contracts between the oil companies and the country will remain confidential, despite calls from journalists and activists to release them, and doubts over the accuracy of the information coming out of the government.

The leaked copy of Heritage Oil’s PSA with Uganda shows an agreement weighted heavily in the favour of the private company, and the heft of the risk being left on Uganda’s shoulders.

Two journalists were arrested yesterday in Kampala on charges of libel for comparing Uganda under President Museveni to the Philippines under Marco.

Recently, Uganda has been in the news for a lack of transparency from government, the proposal of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would introduce the death penalty for homosexuals, and now arresting journalists.

There are fears that the poorly negotiated contracts that Heritage Oil had and are now owned by Tullow Oil are going to contribute to the possibility of Uganda suffering the “resource curse” the same way that Nigeria has.

Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest oil producers, and yet Nigerians are currently lining up for fuel overnight due to shortages, and the majority of the country is still very poor, as the benefits of the oil production industry have only reached the already wealthy and powerful.

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By CanuckJacq

Kampala’s senior magistrate has ruled that the Production Sharing Agreements that Uganda has with Tullow Oil, Heritage Oil, Dominium and Tower Resources will remain confidential.

A case taken in 2008 by activists and journalists in Uganda has been decided in favour of the government’s position of keeping the details of these contracts a secret from their people.

The primary reason for the decision appears to be the fear that the companies would pull out if Uganda made the details of the contracts public. And although the decision noted that very few countries allow the contracts to be made public, one of these countries is Norway — one of the few oil producing countries that hasn’t fallen victim to the resource curse that seems to plague resource-rich countries.

Uganda’s government looks set to take the kind of approach to their oil production as Nigeria, courting the resource curse, ensuring that the economic benefit is seen only by the few and powerful, instead of following the lead of Norway which has seen its natural resource management work with government transparency.

NPR reported earlier today that effects of corruption, cronyism and signs of resource curse can already be seen in the Lake Albert area, where a local politician (who is guaranteed his seat through “ring fencing”)  has secured for his company the contract to supply Tullow Oil with beef and fish.

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• Uganda Parliament To Discuss Heritage Oil Asset Sale Thursday (online.wsj.com)

The Ugandan government has trumpeted that the new oil deal with Tullow oil will net them 80% of the total revenue. A new analysis done by a group who managed to get a leaked copy of the closely guarded draft Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) shows that not only is 80% slightly better than the very best case scenario, the best case scenario is 79.5% provided the government options the 15% stake it has a right to, does not build the pipeline it is intending to and that oil remains at over $122/barrel throughout production. At the moment, it is about $75/barrel. The best-case scenario is utterly unrealistic.

The report (pdf)  published by Platform also explains how the deal is markedly worse for Uganda than for the Iraqi Kurdistan deal with Heritage Oil, which is far riskier and therefore should have profits leaning more towards the private company than in Uganda, where things are more stable and less risky for Tullow.

In the Uganda PSA, the state actually shoulders the heft of the risk if things don’t go as planned, and Tullow stand to gain the most should things go well. In one scenario, Tullow loses $700 million, and Uganda $2.1 billion.

By comparing a low cost scenario of $1,735 million invested with a high cost scenario of $4,545 million, we discover that as the costs increase, the government will loses a greater sum of money. The stateʼs discounted revenues (net present value) fall by $500 million, while Tullowʼs fall by only $300 million. If non-discounted, Tullowʼs total cashflow fall by $700 million, but the state loses $2.1 billion.

If things go well,

… it is Tullow, not Uganda, which captures the ʻupsideʼ – the chance of ever-higher profits. At $70 Tullow makes a rate of return of 26.5%, at $120 it is 36.3% and at $180 the company makes 44.4% The companyʼs profits rise at a steady gradient with increased prices. Meanwhile, Uganda – which carried the risk of downside – fails to increase its proportion of total revenues. Instead, as prices rise, the stateʼs take plateaus at just over 75%. In other words, Tullow can continue to take one quarter of oil revenues, whether the oil price is $100 or $250 – raking in enormous profits.

In short, whoever negotiated this deal for the Ugandan government should be sacked, or should at least have to explain himself. Whoever negotiated for Tullow, well, they are good at what they do, obviously. Ripping off developing countries to walk away with a profit of up to 35% in the business world is something to be commended I guess. I never was much of a business person.

The deal is being partially financied by 75% taxpayer owned, Royal Bank of Scotland. Environmental group PLATFORM, who published the leaked PSAs and had them analysed, are taking legal action to force the RBS, which traditionally invests heavily in oil interests, to evaluate environmental and human rights impacts of investments.

Taimour Lay writes in The Guardian:

Our appeal for judicial review, filed on 9 December, argues that the Treasury, majority shareholder in RBS through UK Financial Investments (UKFI), has unlawfully failed to assess the environmental and human rights impact of RBS investments, including its role as Tullow Oil’s lead backer in Uganda.

By CanuckJacq

The Ugandan government has withdrawn its  objection to Tullow Oil buying out Heritage Oil’s Lake Albert blocks after the company held talks with the president. Now Italian Oil company Eni, who had been favoured by the Ugandan government, and Tullow Oil, will wait for a decision that is expected next week.

Italian oil company Eni, has a statement on its website regarding its own human rights policy.

An active and attentive approach is also adopted in order to prevent the risk of complicity in violations committed by third parties in combination with the intention to promote human rights as a fundamental theme for sustainable development while strengthening the involvement of public institutions and the business community in this area.

I wonder to “violations committed by a third party” include human rights being violated by the state in which they are operating?

Irish (UK-registered) Tullow Oil has a document on their Corporate Social Responsibility activities which outlines what projects they have initiated in the developing countries where they have been operating. No word on advocating for oppressed homosexuals, obviously.

The Ugandan government ruling party has introduced an Anti-homosexuality Bill that will introduce sentences for failing to report homosexual incidents, speaking up for gay rights and will also allow the state to kill homosexuals if they are “repeat offenders”.

by CanuckJacq

Recently I’ve been writing a lot about Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. I’ve been accused of racism, of trying to subvert Uganda’s sovereignty, cultural imperialism, and of ignoring the will of the Ugandan people to push a LGBT agenda in a country that is not my own. I’ve been accused of trying to sink deals that could potentially inject a lot of money into the Ugandan economy. (because I have that kind of power, right? C’mon Tullow Oil, Bank of America, Merryl Lynch, Harold Ford, listen to me!)

I would like to be a bit self indulgent and respond to some of these accusations.

My criticisms of the proposed law have nothing to do with the race of the people pushing the anti-gay agenda, nor of the people who it is intended to harm. If Sweden offered a similar law I would protest as fiercely.

Nor have my criticisms anything to do with some personal suspicion that Ugandans are incapable of governing their own country. The fact is, most Ugandans who present themselves on the internet in these discussions have demonstrated a frightening hostility to homosexuals in their own country, and even those who appear sympathetic often demonstrate an understandable discomfort with the distinction between homosexual, transgendered, bisexual and other sexual and gender identities.

The issue in both those cases is a lack of education about sexual and gender identities. As a Ugandan doctor writes:

In Africa, what most of us know about homosexuality is that it’s a political taboo. That had carried over into my medical education. I did all my training in Africa. I was used to wards filled with patients, male and female, dying of AIDS. I knew HIV was spread by sex. To me, it was a heterosexual disease. I’d never been taught or told much about prevention or treatment for men who had sex with men.
from The Huffington Post

In 2004, the Ugandan broadcasting council fined Radio Simba for broadcasting a program that hosted homosexuals who defended their “way of life”. Under the proposed legislation, speaking about homosexuality would become a far more serious offence, meaning that doctors will remain ignorant of the needs of their homosexual patients, and the Ugandan people will remain in the dark about their family, friends and fellow countrywomen and men who live in silence and fear for simply being themselves.

“Myself I am at risk,” Onziema [a lesbian Ugandan] told Reuters Africa Journal “I can’t move on the streets as I used to, I can’t go to a shop … I have been picked off the streets, detained for sometime, ridiculed, intimidated, some money taken away from my wallet…”
from Ethiopian Review

I keep saying this, but I feel it keeps being ignored. Far from ignoring the desires of Ugandans, I am doing my level best to voice the needs of the Ugandans who have no voice. The anti-gay agenda in Uganda isn’t necessarily culturally pure. As reported extensively on the Rachel Maddow show, on Box Turtle Bulletin and several other news sources, American anti-gay fundamentalist groups and prominent US politicians (and some crazies like ex-gay Richard Cohen) pumped money and, most importantly, misinformation into Uganda in the run up to the introduction of this bill.

Even from a homophobic perspective, this bill is hardly necessary as homosexuality is already a criminal offence under existing law. The new proposed bill introduces the death sentence for homosexuals, and custodial sentences for those advocating for homosexuals and those who fail to report suspected homosexual behaviour. It simply ensures to a greater degree that LGBTQ Ugandans will continue to have no voice.

And when I say no voice, I am a little wrong and perhaps a lot rhetorical. I do not want or mean to belittle the incredibly brave work of gay Ugandans and their Ugandan advocates. There are gay Ugandans fighting for their rights, and straight Ugandans who fight for the rights of their gay sisters and brothers. People risk their freedom to fight for the right to live an honest life, and if this bill passes, even the act of speaking out could lead to incarceration. If the arrest lead to the discovery of actual homosexual activity, it could lead to death.

So to close, I will continue to blog about the Ugandan Anti-homosexuality Bill because I have a voice that costs me nothing. I will name those who support it, either intentionally, by proxy or by turning a blind eye. I will keep asking those in positions of international and corporate power to voice their support for freedom to those who have the power to make a difference. I will lend my support those in Uganda who have the incredible courage to speak up for themselves and others, because every person deserves to live a true and honest life without loss of freedom or indeed her or his life.

If you have a problem with that, you have every right to say it, but I have every right to press on.

And I will.

(In case you only read me here, some of this happened over at Irish lesbian website Gaelick.com, where I blog regularly as well.)

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Ugandan Minister of State for Investment, Aston Kajara, has said in an AP report that Uganda’s government fears a backlash from foreign investors if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill passes.

Aston Kajara is also the minister who has been dealing with the Heritage Oil and Tullow Oil deal. There was a chance that the government was going to block Tullow Oil from purchasing the two blocks at Lake Albert from Heritage.

While Tullow’s offer has yet to be approved by the Ugandan government, speculation is already mounting over who they will choose to bring into the deal with them. Total SA and CNOOC are often mentioned and both have very spotty records when it comes to working responsibly in the countries in which they have operations.

In a BBC report, Minister Kajara was quoted as saying the legislation was unecessary and that the government would look to have it quashed. In the same piece, the Ugandan Minister for Ethics, James Nsaba Buturo was quoted saying that Minister Kajara was not speaking for the government.

Obviously Tullow Oil, and CEO Aidan Heavey are in a prime position to put pressure on the Ugandan government before they invest 1.35 billion USD into the Lake Albert area.

Tullow Oil have so far declined to comment.

Irish oil company, Tullow Oil (TLW.LN), is hoping for Ugandan Government approval on a deal that would leave them holding 100% of 3 licence blocks where oil was discovered by Lake Albert. To secure the funding they require for their multiple projects, they placed a further 80 million shares priced at 1,150 pence (sterling), which was a drop from yesterday’s price by more than 5%.

Tullow expect to bring in a partner to Uganda by selling half of its Ugandan assets. Currently the front runners are CNOOC from China and France’s Total SA.

Total SA has a rocky ethical and environmental reputation and is, “currently the subject of a lawsuit in French and Belgian courts for the condoning and use of the country’s civilian slavery to construct the named pipeline.” Chinese State-owned CNOOC has been accused of, “a raft of abuses, ranging from land seizure to wanton pollution of rice fields and water systems with oil waste,” in Burma.

That said, Tullow itself can be found in the listings of several Ethical Investment Funds. Whether it belongs there is hotly disputed.

From a December 2009 article on the Royal Bank of Scotland:

Another example of misplaced, damaging investments is the Irish company Tullow Oil, who earlier this year used RBS capital to embark on an oil exploration mission in a region of Africa that’s being subjected to a resource-driven civil war: the conflict over natural resources on the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda has led to the displacement of over 30,000 people, adding to the existing 1.4 million displaced people in the area.
from Badidea.co.uk

From Aegon’s company profile on Crocodyl.org, last updated in November 2009.

Aegon Asset Management [...] offers private investors three different ethical investment funds. Aegon screens them to exclude companies that 1) operate in countries with poor human rights records, and 2) lack established management policies on human rights issues.

However, research by SOMO revealed that one of the Ethical Equity Fund’s top holdings, Tullow Oil, fulfilled neither of those criteria. [...]

Aegon relies on EIRIS assessments of countries’ human rights records. The Ethical Investment Research Service rate countries on A and B lists, both indicating a serious risk of human rights violations. Violations in list A countries are particularly prevalent. Tullow Oil is active in several of the countries in list A including Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Pakistan, Uganda, and Bangladesh. List B countries where Aegon does business include Congo (Brazzaville), Liberia, and Mauritania.
from Crocodyl.org (links have been added)

It would seem this is not the first time that Tullow has come under fire for operating in areas where human rights abuses are the norm.

If you’re wondering why human rights abuses should exclude a company from operating in a particular area, think about how these abuses will impact the day to day running of the company. Besides even the money that will go into the government’s coffers — and in a country like Uganda, the money goes to the already rich, and very little is used to help raise the lot of the poor and suffering.

But think about the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. For instance, in Uganda’s situation, could Tullow send a gay employee there should the bill pass? Could they risk it? What if a manager in Tullow’s Ugandan operation became aware that a worker was gay? He then would be required by law to report that, and the employee could be incarcerated. Could you tolerate a worker of yours being incarcerated (or worse) for something that is most certainly by international standards, not a crime? I couldn’t. No rational person can justify this scenario.

Tullow Oil have so far declined to comment on the situation. They have been contacted, and I will most certainly relay any statements they send my way as soon as I have them.

As I reported earlier, Irish-founded company Tullow Oil has just invested in Uganda‘s oil interests to the tune of 1.35 billion USD. While this is news, it’s not exactly the kind of news I’d be reading normally. I’m not down with the nitty-gritty of fossil fuels, nor am I any kind of expert in the kind of big business required to make a deal of these proportions.

What brought my attention to this item of news is the ongoing and largely ignored in the mainstream media plan to have the new Anti-Homosexuality Bill passed in Uganda. In its most extreme form, this bill will allow for the execution of people convicted of the crime of aggravated homosexuality. Also in the bill are provisions restricting speech that promotes homosexuality, including HIV/AIDS prevention education and the new crime of failing to report any homosexual activity a person may be privy to.

Very few have tried to effect any change in this. Imagine for a moment, as Irish blogger and PR consultant John McGuirk asks, that this policy was being directed at an ethnic minority. There would be trade embargoes, protests and boycotts of everything Ugandan. And while various news outlets have certainly covered the story, and Rachel Maddow covered it non-stop for a number of weeks, there has been almost no political will to do anything about it.

Would Tullow Oil have invested in a country proposing a genocidal law that targeted an ethnic minority? Would the law have even progressed this far?

I don’t think so. What we’re seeing here is a statement, clear as day, that the straight world in general does not see the potential execution of homosexuals as a big deal. It’s just not making anyone very angry.

If there was ever a time for full-on outrage within the gay community, the kind of outrage that will infect our straight allies as well, the time is now.

There are gay Ugandans. This bill isn’t make-believe or a mere inconvenience, as Bill Gates would have us believe.

There are gay Ugandans.

Let me say it again: Gay people live in Uganda and virtually no one is sticking up for them.

I bet Mr Gates has not read the text of the bill. Please do. Hey, I remember a comment that many didnt believe Mein Kampf had any significance. But, the writer, Hitler did. So does Bahati. So do the many Ugandans who support it, and want the bill made law. No, I dont think it is any help to try and doubt the passion of Ssempa, Bahati, and Nsaba-Buturo. They mean exactly what they say. Homosexuals should forget about Human Rights. As direct as that. Please, dont insult their passion, their dedication by thinking they dont mean exactly what they say they want. Do not.
from Gay Uganda blog

It appears in fact, that people are lining up to give money to and pal around with those who are planning to murder gay people and imprison those who know them, speak for them and fail to report their friends to the authorities.

We’re not letting up on this one. If you have any information, or ideas that you want to share, comment here. If you want to tweet me, you’ll find me always @CanuckJacq.

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• Details on Ugandan Pastor Martin Ssempa’s Filthy Screenings in Support of the ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill (towleroad.com)

Today, Tullow Oil, a UK registered company that began in 1985 in the Republic of Ireland, announced that they have signed into a deal with Heritage Oil worth an immediate $1.35 billion USD.

Tullow’s Chief Executive Officer, Aidan Heavey, was named Ernst & Young‘s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005. He grew up in County Kildare in the Republic of Ireland. In an interview with the Uk paper, the Independent, he tells how he prides himself on keeping a family feeling in the company and how he just wants everyone to be happy and make a little money. Presumably he doesn’t worry too much about homosexual employees.