– An aid organization would never have accepted such an agreement – E24

On Tuesday, Stavanger Aftenblad / E24 wrote about Equinor, which has transferred NOK 295 million to indefinite “social projects” in Angola after being granted a license in 2011. The recipient was the state-owned oil company Sonangol.

Equinor has no idea where the money is being spent and has not secured any right of access to it. Angolan researcher Aslak Orre believes that the money can be assumed to have disappeared into the “deep hole of corruption.”

– Absolutely unthinkable

Dagfinn Høybråten is Secretary General of Norwegian Church Aid. As a thought experiment, consider the Equinor payment from an aid perspective. According to him, a Norwegian aid organization would never have concluded such an agreement.

– No one would be close to accepting something like that. It’s completely unthinkable that it would have happened without being stopped, says Høybråten.

He points out several mechanisms that would put an end to such a project.

– In the first place, no donor, Norwegian or foreign, would pay for something as undefined and unclear as here. We had never received money for it, says the former KrF minister.

A donor is the company or person who donates money to aid organizations. In Norway, Norad, under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is the main public donor. Abroad, there are other examples, such as the EU.

– If the money was still there, we would never have come to an agreement that did not set clear conditions for understanding how the funds were used and clear requirements for reporting, Høybråten continues.

Equinor believes that it would be incorrect to compare payments related to the award of exploration licenses with the follow-up of development assistance projects.

The company emphasizes that no information has come to light that the money was used for a purpose other than its intended purpose and notes that the payments have been deemed not to conflict with relevant anti-corruption legislation. Read Equinor’s full answer below on the case.

I had to return 533 crowns

According to Høybråten, if there was as much money as a deal, it would be a short-term affair.

– The project would have stopped after the first year. If we had reported something as lazy as this, they would have charged us the money. Not just what couldn’t be explained, but the sum total, he says.

He cites an example to illustrate how strict the control is in Norway: in the previous quarter, NOK 533 was the smallest sum that was required from a Norwegian aid organization.

– Show how the Norwegian authorities relate to this. There is zero tolerance for corruption and that money is lost, says Høybråten.

According to Norad’s report, the reimbursement concerned a project in Cambodia under the auspices of the Digni organization. The background was the suspicion that a local employee had sold seeds and plastic to farmers rather than giving it away for free, and hired a family member for two-day training purposes for $ 50.

Ask for more stringent requirements

– How much is 295 million kronor in this context?

– Its a lot of money. This corresponds to the amount that the large Norwegian aid organizations receive from Norad for a whole year. When everything goes to a country, it is especially noisy, says Høybråten.

He is very critical of the agreement that Equinor signed in 2011.

– When you see how the state spends every penny to make sure everything gets to where it should be in development aid, it’s depressing to see a story like this as it stands. It shows great laxity with funds created from the business of a partial state enterprise.

Høybråten emphasizes that it is basically good that the business community is involved in developing countries.

– But they should make the same demands on themselves as us when using taxpayers’ money, says Høybråten.

– It is not correct to compare with the help.

– The funds that Equinor has paid to Sonangol are not assistance, but should be considered as a payment to the state as one of several business criteria in the bidding process in relation to the announcement of exploration licenses in 2011, says Erik Haaland, spokesperson of Equinor’s international operations.

Sonangol was responsible for managing the funds on behalf of the Angolan authorities, the payment was made through the Angolan central bank and the distribution had to be done according to the local framework, Equinor says.

– This gives Equinor a limited right of access to how the funds are disposed of. Therefore, it will not be correct to compare the payments of funds as part of an offer after the award of an exploration license with the follow-up of development projects, says Haaland.

In addition, it notes that the payments are considered not to violate the relevant anti-corruption legislation and that there has been no information to indicate that the money was spent for purposes other than those intended.

– When Equinor with donations or otherwise contributes to specific projects in countries where we are present, we work primarily through established aid organizations and follow similar follow-up and documentation requirements referred to by Norwegian Church Aid. Examples of this can be found in our own collaboration with Norwegian Church Aid in various countries.

– Incredible

Terje Osmundsen has worked with renewables in Africa for many years, including as Executive Vice President of Scatec Solar and now Empower New Energy. You are amazed at what emerges from the Equinor payments.

– Sounds inconceivable. I can hardly imagine it being possible to transfer so much money without further clarifying what it will be used for, says Osmundsen.

He believes the case is an example of what can happen when international companies and large amounts of money face bad institutions with little transparency and politicians without good intentions.

– In this sense, it is significant that Angola is one of the few countries that has not joined Eiti’s important initiative for full transparency in the oil industry.

High oil profit

However, he emphasizes that he has never seen similar examples in his own work.

– This is probably mainly due to the fact that licenses in the oil and mining industry have traditionally had much higher profit potential than, for example, renewable resources like wind and solar.

Osmundsen is concerned that the contribution of companies to social projects is not an evil in itself. He points out that similar schemes were also common in Norway when the oil age began.

– We should not suspect that companies contribute to social development outside the oil sector, but requirements must be established and linked to specific projects, he says.

– Equinor must assume its share of responsibility

Aurora Nereid is the CEO of the Joint Council for Africa. She is very skeptical about the Equinor deal in Angola.

– Reaching an agreement where no information on the use of 295 million is obtained seems to me quite a long way from Equinor’s mantra of interacting with players with high ethical standards, says Nereid.

– Here, the company must assume its share of responsibility and not just blame Sonangol. Equinor has an opportunity here to set a new standard for how Norwegian companies can help limit secrecy and corruption in the oil sector. I hope they use it wisely, she says.

Arne Wiig is a Principal Investigator at Chr. Michelsen’s Institute. He has investigated social funds in Angola and believes it is unclear to what extent they contribute to the social development of the country.

– It worked? Is the money being spent efficiently? It is difficult to answer. It seems very random how the money has been spent, says Wiig, who calls social funds “a bad development aid policy,” which has not been the subject of the same evaluation as regular development assistance.