Economic Benefits are REAL but FROM REAL- Uganda Oil Economics

 

Often time transparency and accountability dominate the oil discussion among the key stakeholders, with limited attention paid to the economic consequences. The two are necessary but not sufficient for sustainable management of the resource and are arguably strongly correlated negative economic consequences including the oil curse.

If you remember where you were and how you felt when Uganda discovered its oil in 2006, optimism was on the lips of many Ugandans. Today there is a sect of the population that would prefer to have the oil remain in the ground than being out. Uganda enjoyed commendable macro-economic stability from the early 1990s to mid-2000s or late 2000s but since then the economy faced some hard times including the 20 year low record economy growth of 3.2% and record high inflation of 30.7% in financial year 2011/12. It is also notable that annual exchange rate (bureau mid-rate) has depreciated from 1$ =1772 Ug. Shs in financial year 2006/07 to 1$ =2585 Ug. Shs the last financial year. The exchange rate is expected to depreciate further in the next couple of years. This calls for investing in enhancing the non-oil sector export competiveness.

In 2006, Uganda’s debt burden was reduced from $4.1bn to $1.6bn under the World Bank/IMF led Highly-Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. However, the debt stock has already shot back to the 2006 levels.  In this current financial year – Uganda intends to borrow 1 trillion shilling from the domestic market. In the same year, the interest bill accounts for almost the same amount in our current appropriated budget. This represents 7.5% of the national budget and is more than the share appropriated to either health sector. Despite recent assessments showing that Uganda’s debt is sustainable, it is evident that the cost of the debt is on the rise. Depending on which school of thought one subscribes to, some argue that this rising trend is due to the expectations of future oil revenues.

This period of economic challenges coincides with the period oil was discovered in 2006. Hypothetically it is arguable that there is a correlation between the discovery of oil and the economic trend over the period.

Prospectively Uganda will defacto face some economic challenges ahead of oil extraction. The first challenge is the high expectations that oil has cast on Ugandans. The recent tullow Oil report indicates that 150,000 Jobs both direct and indirectly. It is also worth noting that Uganda average churns out about 400,000 from its higher levels of education (universities, tertially). According to Uganda National household survey 2009/10, the unemployed were 480,300 – accounting for of 4.2% of the labor force. Evidently the oil jobs will not significantly bridge the unemployment gap. 

 Related is the skeweness of the economic activity towards oil, likely leading to slow progress.  Over the last 7 years, it is noted that the services and manufacturing sectors that have strong linkages with oil sector increasingly account for the economy cake relative to agriculture.  Commendably Uganda has enacted a local content policy, but this also risks skewing attention to the oil sector. It is of critical importance that the next development plan incorporates a holistic plan of the economy local content which incorporates the oil local content.

On a positive side, the Oil revenue management policy envisages the economic challenges associated with the oil revenue management and proposes measures to address them and has developed a public finance bill, once passed will operationalize the management of the bill. The bill was submitted to parliament in March 2012 and is yet to be passed. A set of 55 amendments have since been re submitted to the responsible parliament session committee for consideration. The delays in passing the bill has its own economic implications including the delay in setting up the respective institutions and structures the bill intends to create, consequently the oil production. Further delays of oil production beyond 2018 will compound the recovery costs.

Oil is a finite resource and its prices are highly volatile. Worryingly, the proposed law does envisage creation of the stabilization fund. The stabilization fund, aims to……. It is indeed important to follow up the recommendation of the ORMP and ensure that pricing stability /benchmarking mechanisms are to be put in place. A pricing committee could be established to consult the Government and Parliament on medium term oil price projections with a view to smoothing future spending based on expected oil receipts.

 There are some best practice cases for Uganda including my employers Norway who have been in the oil business for 40 years and boast of over of oil fund reserves of 760bn dollars for just 5 million people. The reserves by any standard are astronomical more so compared to Uganda forex reserves of 3-4 bn reserves. The key has been in the Norwegian model is that Legislation and institutional framework must be correct. Capacity should be built while enabling all actors to perform their roles especially the institutions responsible for the management of the resources

 

 

Shared benefits for all require openness about oil resources( published in vision 26th november 2013)

 

The 3.5 Billion barrels reserves of Oil find present Uganda with an opportunity of windfall revenue when oil production commences. Commercial production is expected to commence 2017 and the estimates of oil revenues are in the range of 2- 3.5 Billion dollars per annuam which is more than 50% of the current cumulative national debt. The current reserves are expected to last 20-24 years if production is at 200,000 bpd.  In essence, if oil revenues are managed well, they will not only go a long way in leveraging Uganda from its debt, but will also deliver critical development infrastructure.

Oil Revenue Management will be guided by the Oil Revenue Management Policy (2012) and the Public Finance Bill (PFB) currently before parliament. The proposed law provides for a single petroleum fund in Bank of Uganda (BoU) where all oil revenue collections will be deposited. All oil revenue collections and administration will be done by Uganda Revenue Authority while the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development will be in charge of the petroleum fund with a delegated authority of management of the petroleum funds to BoU.

The Petroleum fund has twin objectives of financing the budget and Investing/saving for future Generations. The withdrawal of funds to cater for the national budget will be through Parliamentary approval on a year-by-year basis. In the short run, the oil funds will be limited to funding the non-oil Budget deficit agreed as part of the Budget process.   The withdrawals of petroleum funds to the budget left to discretion of Parliament presents a clear risk that political pressure that could result in revenues being spent rather than invested.

The funds that then remain on the petroleum fund will be invested in accordance with the petroleum revenue investment policy issued by the Minister in consultation with the Secretary to the Treasury and on the advice of the Investment Advisory Committee. The members of the Investment Advisory Committee shall be appointed by the Minister after approved by Parliament‖.  The future savings provision withstanding, the bill does not explicitly provide for the stabilization fund which would provide a steady level of government revenue in the face of oil price fluctuations.

There are various forms of accountability and transparency provided in current bill which include the Minister tabling table the annual report to parliament. The Office of the auditor general will audit both the funds on the petroleum fund and the funds transferred to the budget and present annual reports to Parliament.

 

The proposed legal framework provides Uganda a strong foundation for management of oil revenues; however the main challenge lies in the implementation of its laws. The implementation gap between policies and regulatory frameworks on the one hand, and actual performance on the other must not be allowed for the petroleum sector in Uganda.

The legal framework provides the necessary foundation but to realize full benefits, open transparency is key- information for all. As much as the proposed law requires the Government of Uganda (GOU) to publish incoming revenue receipts, it does not specify how reported receipts will be disaggregated, nor does it require companies to publicly disclose the payments that they make to the GOU. A critical and more urgent action for Uganda is to adhere to the International standards of transparency. An example of these International standards is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) which requires its member Countries to publish all payments made by oil, gas, and mining companies to government, and all revenues received by the government from those companies.  EITI implementers also commit to closely involving civil society in the design and monitoring of the EITI process. Also the Dodd-Frank Act in the US and the Accounting and Transparency Directives in the EU require all private oil companies that fall under the jurisdiction of these requirements to publish annually details of all revenue payments to the host governments, including taxes, royalties, licensing fees and bonuses.

If the Uganda truly intends to join the EITI, as it has repeatedly stated by President and the respective ministers, it perhaps makes logical sense, harmonizing its reporting requirements with the EITI Standard   in order to limit administrative burden going forward. In fact some international companies, including Tullow Oil, Total E&P, Dominion Petroleum and CNOOC will be required to report their payments to the GOU by virtue of their stock exchange listings or home jurisdiction law. As such, it would be wise to include a requirement in the Public Finance Bill to require companies to declare their payments to the GOU in line with international transparency requirements.  In fact, Ghana which signed to the EITI in 2003 has a separate EITI bill.

 

EITI compliance helps to prevent oil, gas or mining revenues being mismanaged or lost to corruption. Experience shows it also leads to improvements in the tax collection process and boosts public finances as it has in Ghana and Nigeria. Nigeria’s first EITI audit report found a discrepancy of $230 million between what the companies reported to have paid, and what the Nigerian Central Bank reported to have received.

 

To attain shared benefits for all from oil, it requires shared information for all. Informed citizenry, civil society organisations and the media are and will be crucial healthy transparency and accountability organs