At Platform we’ve been very focused on looking at how oil companies use cultural institutions to plaster over their controversial operations, but just yesterday a UK-based oil company moved into the sports sector. The Guardian reported that Premier League Sunderland AFC had secured “pioneering African sponsorship” with Invest in Africa.
The article makes Invest In Africa sound like some sort of benevolent development NGO, emphasising the outfit’s “not for profit” credentials, and uncritically reporting that its mission is “to challenge the perception of the continent as crisis-torn and poverty-stricken and persuade British companies to begin operations there.” Three years ago, Barcelona won praise for putting UNICEF on their shirts – this is an attempt to get similar credit, while effectively just getting money from an oil company aggressively expanding its operations across the continent.
The article acknowledges that Tullow Oil is the founding partner of Invest In Africa, but when you look at the website and you can’t see any other partners apart from Tullow Oil, it leads you to question if this is simply a front outfit for the company. Creating an organisation like this allows it to frame its drilling operations in the rhetoric of “growth and development on the African continent” – precisely the line enthusiastically parroted by Sunderland manager Martin O’Neill.
This blurred line between Tullow Oil and Invest In Africa is made even more suspect when you place their logos side by side (as below) and see the similarities in font, design and colour. ‘Criticise Tullow and you’re against development’, runs the corporation’s semiotic logic. But the development PR of Tullow is enormously undermined by the nature of the deals that they have tried to strike in countries like Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In May 2010, we released a report that analysed leaked contracts and showed that Tullow (and Heritage Oil) and the British Embassy in Kinshasa had been lobbying for terms that would cut Congolese government revenues by over $10 billion – a figure equivalent to the country’s entire national debt. There was also a credible report in a US diplomatic cable that Tullow’s then partner in Congo, Heritage Oil, was tasked with building relationships with senior politicians to ensure the lucrative deal went through.
The result of this particular “Investment in Africa” would have represented a significant transfer of wealth from some of Africa’s poorest to British and Irish investors. Elsewhere, from Ghana to Kenya, Tullow have worked against development outcomes by resisting calls for their 25-year contracts to be made public.
Last month Tullow were on the backfoot again after a Corporate Watch investigation found that the killing of six Congolese by the Ugandan army next to a shared Tullow/Heritage exploration block was triggered by Heritage straying across the border illegally. Only following the release of the report – a full five years since the deaths – has Tullow promised to investigate what really happened.
Yesterday’s announcement, on the other hand, asserted that people across Africa should be grateful not only for the promotion of Western extractive interests, but also for their exposure to Sunderland AFC. Aidan Heavey, chief executive of Tullow Oil said:
There’s a huge, growing population – the biggest young population on the planet is in Africa, and they are football-mad. Sunderland will become the Premier League club in Africa. Everybody will be wearing the Sunderland shirt, every kid in every school will want a Sunderland shirt which says ‘Invest in Africa’, believe me. It will be the number one club, so what you are looking at is a huge market and huge exposure, and Sunderland will have that exposure.
Perhaps English Premier League football and oil interests are the perfect fit, after all. Both industries are devoted to aggressive marketing and revenue maximisation from a global product, with no regard for local communities. The ‘EPL’ in Africa is killing attendances in domestic leagues. It’s often tied up with promotion of small-bet gambling in the cities. Compare that to an older working-class fan culture on the continent that revolved around going to local games, an experience that often used to prove politicising. The ‘Express’ team in Uganda (where Tullow are hoping to start production this year) were the influential team of the Baganda. Now the crowds are in the hundreds. The political elite is certainly grateful that fans prefer sitting in bars watching the Manchester derby to hitting the streets after a live match.
This blog post was co-written with Taimour Lay who used to investigate Tullow for Platform in East Africa
10 Comments
Good Job
Is there a point to this article?
Any human being who has two brain cells could see that the Invest In Africa sponsorship was really a Tullow Oil sponsorship, so your not really blowing the whistle, just advertising what everyone already knew.
Why not write this article when Invest in Africa was actually created and set-up instead of using Sunderland AFC and the EPL as a springboard for your views on a company you clearly despise.
If this is "investigative" journalism then I think your in the wrong career or grossly overpaid for doing very little.
hi graeme,
the point is not to expose Tullow Oil as the ‘real’ sponsors, the point it to bring to the surface the hypocrisy of what Invest In Africa says it is doing, and what Tullow Oil is actually doing. It would have been great to do this, as you suggested when Invest In Africa was actually created, but it’s existence was only brought to our attention through the sponsorship deal, so that’s when we wrote the blog. Thanks for your comments.
And what a bloody awful article it was in the Grauniad; quoting verbatim from press releases with no attempt to bring any enquiry, or fresh or individual narrative to the piece.
we're not claiming Tullow's involvement was a secret (their chief exec was at the press conference, after all), but the 'blowing the whistle' headline is justified by the work Platform's done in exposing Tullow across Africa: the secret contracts, the shoddy environmental practices, the political deals… This particular blog is really about the way the company has chosen to wrap itself in a ''non-profit'' cloak for sponsorship and PR purposes. A lot of Sunderland fans seem to be grateful a bit of light's been shed on the their new corporate 'partners'.
Also, Invest in Africa was only created in January 2012 – it wasn't clear how Tullow were going to use it. Now we know…
I think investment does work. it creates value. it employs citizens. it builds capacity. it creates growth. whats wrong with Sunderland and Tullow teaming up? Tullow has brought immense value to Africans and shareholders around the world. Its inverstments have opened new basins in the hinterland of Africa and attracted massive dollars and led to growth in places like Ghana. does the business run into difficulties and controversies? which business doesnt? which relationship does not?dont undermine the value of business in creating growth.. and in creating opportunity..Big up to Sunderland
But who benefits the most from investment in Africa in this context? Wealthy Tullow shareholders, or the impoverished fishing communities of the Western region in Ghana who are living nearest the rigs? Ghana is an interesting example because the exceptional growth rates have not brought equality. Most Ghanaians are struggling to cope with high inflation rates, as reported here. Well-paid jobs in the oil sector are limited to a relatively small workforce.
The problem is that Tullow’s aggressive expansion across Africa has encountered more than “difficulties and controversies”. Its operations have threatened human rights, the environment and flouted local laws. While development and employment are necessary on the continent, that should not come at the expense of basic rights. Nor should a company be excused for irresponsible activities because it is making rich people richer.
So, what exactly are you suggesting? Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, etc did not have the wherewithal (finances, equipment, personel) to pursue prospective drilling. Also, it is not as if the government officials involved in negotiating these deals are without blame. Generally speaking, people dont get what they want or deserve; they get what they negotiate for. It would be interesting to see an equal investigation into the outcomes for the African leaders involved.
“people dont get what they want or deserve; they get what they negotiate for”. But there is no equality of bargaining power in many of the deals cut by international oil companies in the developing world, especially in the countries you mention because they are all new producers. Platform’s analysis of oil contracts in Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia and East Africa shows that many of these deals are unfair, excessively profitable for oil companies and impose serious environmental and social risks. We also condemn the actions of governments who negotiate the contracts in secret and get bad deals for their citizens, while doing little or nothing to prevent corruption in the use of oil revenues.