understanding land investment deals in africa - Oakland Institute

when Kinyeti representatives traveled to Juba theylearned that Franklin had been meeting with SouthSudanese public officials without their knowledge.According to Douglas, this constituted a secondbreach of the sublicensing agreement, in which AETGhad agreed to refrain from having any communicationswith the Cooperative or any governmental authoritieswithout Kinyeti’s permission. In April 2011, Kinyetifiled for damages under the arbitration clause of thecontract, accusing Franklin and AETG of breach ofcontract, tortious interference with a contract and leaseagreement, fraud/fraudulent inducement, slander andlibel.Oil, Gas and Mining ActivitiesAccording to the transitional constitution, allsubterranean natural resources in South Sudan aredeemed to be the property of the central government.Douglas and Franklin would therefore need to securea concession agreement from the GoSS Ministryof Energy and Mining to authorize their oil, gas andmining activities, despite the language in the March2008 lease agreement purporting to transfer theserights to Nile Trading.In fact, Kinyeti has already been in discussions with theMinistry of Energy and Mining on several initiatives.According to Kinyeti, it has hosted two senior leveldelegations from South Sudan in the US: one from theGoSS Ministry of Energy and Mining and the other ledby the governor of Central Equatoria State. While in theUS, Kinyeti reportedly introduced the South Sudaneseleaders to public officials in Texas. According to Kinyeti:“[O]ur management team has had the opportunityto introduce leaders from the South Sudannational government and at least one of the stategovernments to their counterparts in the Stateof Texas. The Texas Department of Agricultureand the Texas General Land Office have taken aninterest in South Sudan and the heads of these twokey departments have offered to assist the newleadership in South Sudan in practical training ofadministration of agricultural programs and thecritical matter of administering land and mineralrights.” 80Kinyeti has also had discussions with the Ministryof Energy concerning the development of an electricpower station and a crude oil refinery in CentralEquatoria State. At a cost of USD 205 million, Kinyetiasserts the facilities would be “designed to satisfy thecurrent and near-term future electricity needs for Jubaand Central Equatoria State—along with the country’spriority fuel needs—in a secure, safe, cost effective,and environmentally responsible manner.” 81 Kinyetiand a Colorado-based company called InternationalGeophysical Services (IGS) have also been in touchwith the director general of Geological Survey regardinga USD 34 million Geospatial Information ManagementSystem (GIMS) to map the mineral resources of SouthSudan. 82Mukaya Payam CooperativeAside from its widely divergent business interests,there are a number of other puzzling aspects to theNile Trading agreement. The first concerns the identityof the main domestic signatory to the deal, the MukayaPayam Cooperative. The Agency for Independent Media(AIM), a South Sudanese civil society organization thatissued a report on the Nile Trading investment in 2010,asserts that it is a “fictitious cooperative” comprisedof “a group of influential natives from MukayaPayam” who leased the land to Nile Trading withoutthe knowledge of the community.” 83 In fact, the threeindividuals Scopas Loduo Onje, Samuel Tabani Youziel,and Vincent Kujo who are identified as members of theCooperative are all blood-related. 84A September 2008 letter from leaders from MukayaCommunity to the then Central Equatoria State Ministerof Agriculture corroborates many of the claims made inthe AIM report. 85 The letter, signed by a Mukaya elderwho resides in Juba, claims that the people of Mukaya“deplore the way these projects have been handledand vehemently reject them,” and demands that theminister suspend his approval for the projects 86 :“The two projects have not been made public tothe wider community of Mukaya Payam so thatthey understand the benefits and disadvantagesof the venture. Only a few citizens of the area, withthe knowledge of the [then] Commissioner, wereThe Oakland Institute understanding land investment deals in africa: south sudan | 24