Africa: Whose energy future?

With oil prices rising worldwide, African oil-producing countries are expecting windfall earnings. But a new report from South Africa's GroundWork questions the fundamental structure of the oil industry on the continent. The new report by the South African environmental group, which has a long record of research and protests against the environmental damage from the refining industry in South Africa, goes beyond the common critique that corruption and bad governance block the productive use of oil income. Analyzing both "upstream" production and "downstream" processing on the continent, the report charges that "the oil industry is providing the context for bad governance and corruption," in the words of Nnimmo Bassey of Nigeria's Environmental Rights Action.