The African Union Watch, a Pan African Independent Non-Governmental Organisation, has cautioned European Parliament against dabbling in matters that seek to undermine Africa’s development, especially East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project (EACOP).
The Gambia-based pan-African organisation described as unacceptable a resolution by European Parliament on 14th September 2022, condemning the pipeline project.
The European Parliament has asked the European Union Member States to punish Tanzania and Uganda for embarking on an ambitious pipeline project to extract crude oil from Uganda and having the intention of transporting it to foreign markets through the pipeline built between the two countries.
In a letter signed by Adv. Bahama Tom Mukirya Nyanduga, Chairperson of African Union Watch, addressed to the President of the European Parliament and the European Commission, the group drew the attention of the European Parliament to the fact that since the early 1970s, Tanzania and Zambia built a pipeline, and it has continued to serve landlocked Zambia without any challenges that the EU Parliament is in respect seeking to project.
“The TAZAM pipeline still operates to date. African Union Watch is much aware of efforts by local Civil Society organizations to hold the government of Uganda accountable to their human rights and environmental protection responsibilities,” the release said.
The group observed that companies responsible for the EACOP project have been implementing the project while observing high human rights and environmental standards to ensure that it does not pollute water sources and displace populations on large scale from that land.
It added that where it anticipates that the pipelines will traverse, compensation has been paid and should there be more displacements, they would pay the affected victims.
“It is with this background that the European Union Parliament Resolution adopted on September 14 condemning the EACOP project, has come as a very disturbing development,” the statement stressed.
According to the African Union Watch, the EU Parliament has no direct jurisdictional basis to discuss the African implementation of economic development projects.
They argued that the EU Parliament’s reliance on international human rights instruments to condemn the EACOP project was a cover to negate the economic development aspirations of Uganda and Tanzania and their people.
Again, the group described the resolution referring to the Tanga coast as a Tsunami risk zone as preposterous.
The African Watch Union also challenged the EU Parliament to its core mandate of diplomacy, urging them to focus there.
“African Union Watch abhors the self-serving European Parliament as ultra-vires its powers and is interference into African affairs.”
The group was of the view that Africans have the right to explore their resources to advance the continent’s socio-economic development.
Touching on fossil emissions and their negative impact on climate change, the group was of the view that Africa was not a major polluter compared to the developed world.
The group called on the European Union Parliament to ensure that the best technology is supplied to the African States to ensure that the continent continues exploiting its resources.
This, they said, would be positive multi-lateral cooperation, unlike the condemnation by the European Union Parliament.
African countries, the African Union Watch observed, suffers from disproportionate energy poverty and pointed out that the continent can only eliminate such deficiency, if it deploys all the energy resources at its disposal, including the crude oil from Hoima.
The African Union Watch further expressed awareness that Europe was considering resuming power generation using coal, because of the Russian-Ukraine war, a high pollutant if so, they questioned can’t why poverty-stricken-Africa can’t use its resources to fast-track its socio-economic development.
The African Union Watch concluded by urging the European Union Parliament to immediately revoke what they described as an abhorrent resolution striving to frustrate the use of the continent’s resources to facilitate its socio-economic development.
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