For its part, the World Bank responded to Chad's renegging on its ageements in 2006 by suspending disbursement of $124 million in loans to Chad, and froze the country's $125 million in assets in the London-based Citibank escrow account (Zissis, 2006). In effect, the World Bank has ceased its involvement in Chad. However, the Chad oil investment was $3.7 billion (Zissis, 2006) and the majority investor, the oil consortium wasn't prepared to back out. In fact, to this day, this consortium continues business operations as usual and is actually expanding its drilling activities in both existing and new oilfields in Chad (Bank freezes pipeline funds to Chad, 2006).
World perceptions of the consortium as a result of the failed Chad experiment vary. Critics believe the company is guilty of helping to finance a corrupt regime in which poor subsistence farmers do not receive compensation to make up for lost livelihoods, local villagers are extorted for money from local authorities and the military, human rights activists have to confront death threats when they are try to defend the rights of local people, and pollution is extracting its toll on the health and crops of desperately poor people (Bank freezes pipeline funds to Chad, 2006). Yet, the oil consortium believes they are merely trying to do business in a corrupt country that lacks democracy and that the people are still better off with the project moving forward.
So, who is right, the critics of the oil consortium or the oil consortium confronting the difficult realities of developing regions that lack the ethical considerations in a more affluent society? This is a difficult question to answer, but it is the opinion of this author that if corrupt, undemocratic...
There's simply no incentive to change. For this reason, the oil consortium should be considered as a contributor to unethical behavior for its own financial gain. The oil drilling activities in Chad began with noble goals, but perhaps moved forward to quickly without a demonstrated commitment for Chad to support to the transparency and anti-poverty goals of the World Bank. Then, the oil companies were too invested to withdraw their support. In the future, investments in countries with known corruption and dictatorships should be more paced so that the governments of these types of countries have no other choice but to change their behavior. Otherwise, many more Chad-like situations will continue and the "oil curse" will prove to be unstoppable.
Bibliography
Bank freezes pipeline funds to Chad (2006, January 20). Bretton Woods Project. http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-507557
Daniels, J.D., Radebaugh, L.H., & Sullivan, D.P. (2007) International business: Environments and operations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. ISBN: 0131869426.
Ferrell, O.C., Corporate citizenship: Integrity, stakeholders & exemplars. Colorado State University. http://www.e-businessethics.com/PowerPointSlides/CorporateCitizenship.pdf
Zissis, C. (2006, April 27). Chad's oil troubles. Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.cfr.org/publication/10532/chads_oil_troubles.html
Polgreen, L. (2008, September 10). World Bank ends effort to help Chad ease poverty. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/world/africa/11chad.html
