13-10-03 When ExxonMobil signed on to pump oil from the heart of one of the world's poorest countries under the watchful eye of the World Bank, mango trees didn't figure on a list of potential stumbling blocks. But as the 663-mile underground pipeline from landlocked Chad to a port in neighbouring Cameroon took shape, compensation for destruction of the beautiful fruit-bearing trees was added to the list of contentious issues raised by activists who oppose the project.
According to the contract between ExxonMobil and the government, Chad will receive 12.5 % of the oil revenue, which is estimated to reach up to $ 120 mm a year over the next 25 years. More than 80 % of those funds will go to an audited escrow account in London devoted to health, education and other infrastructure projects in the former French colony battered by 30 years of civil conflict. Another 5 % is meant to benefit the residents who live in the oil-rich but marginalized Doba basin.

But local and international critics are concernedthat the government of President Idriss Deby will get around restrictions on the use of funds and end up pocketing much of the money. The World Bank, however, contends the project will benefit Chad's citizens. For the first time, the bank has given explicit support to private sector investment. It also has a minor stake in the project, footing 3 % of the total bill.
A medium-sized undertaking by global standards, the $ 3.7 bn Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project is the largest single private investment in Africa and ExxonMobil's first onshore oil operation on the continent. The first 950,000 barrels of oil were shipped from Cameroon on Oct. 3.

Under project guidelines, ExxonMobil has paid about $ 7 mm in compensation to subsistence farmers and cattle herders for construction in areas where millet and sorghum once grew. And then there are the highly valued mango trees, many planted in the 1930s by French agronomists and missionaries. Anxious to show that it cares about the local economy, the oil company has paid residents $ 1,000 -- a princely sum in Chad -- for each mango tree it has had to cut down.
"Whenever possible we put the pipeline around the mango trees," said Ron Royal, president of Esso Chad which operates the project for ExxonMobil.

For some Chadians, the mango tree compensation has been the only tangible benefit they've received so far from the pipeline project. Some of those who received the cash "went crazy" with their newfound wealth, spending it in ill-advised ways, said Djeralar Miakeol, a member of a local group highly critical of the pipeline project.
Another concern was the need to resettle people. But in the end ExxonMobil officials said only 33 households, representing about 150 people, had to move.

Much of the local criticism of the project appears to stem from a combination of mistrust of the distant, aloof and often brutal government and unrealistically high expectations of rapid improvement. There was widespread disappointment, for example, when people in the region foundout that ExxonMobil was grading the red soil roads but had no intention of putting down asphalt.
Then the dust raised by the tremendous increase in traffic became another source of complaints. Molasses from a local sugar factory was poured on the roads to keep down the dust in the dry season, but it washed away in heavy rain.

Still, the project is already beginning to make small differences in rural areas. Emmanuel Djikoloumbaye, the 30-year-old chief in the village of Madanadtpheur, hopes to profit from a World Bank-funded rice-growing project on land he farms. With his resettlement compensation money, he has already replaced his mud-and-thatch house with one of compressed bricks and a shiny corrugated iron roof.
Oil has already brought positive changes, he said. "But I don't know whether the government will keep its word on using oil money to help us."