Swiss traders buy 50% of Africa's oil

In a report entitled 'Swiss traders, African oil and the risk of opacity', published on July 20, 2014, a group of three organizations consisting of the Berne Declaration, Swiss aid and of Natural Resource Governance Institute (US), were found to be the three Swiss traders who bought, about 50% of Cameroon oil from the national hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH)last year.

"In 2013, Swiss traders Vitol, Glencore and Gunvor, together bought nearly half of the crude oil sold by SNH. These purchases have resulted in the payment to the Cameroonian State, close to $ 600 million (about 300 billion CFA francs), representing 12% of the revenue of the State", the report revealed.

Moreover, outlined in the above-mentioned, "the case of Cameroon allows the demonstration on how oil sales (for African countries) can be of capital importance for States , as well as for traders.

To justify this argument, the report reveals, for example, in 2013, "Glencore purchased for nearly 400 million dollars (approximately 200 billion FCfa) crude oil from the SNH, whereas the turnover (gross sales volume) of this trader, the same year, culminated in "$233 billion, representing 9 times the GDP of Cameroon in 2012".

But beyond these figures, the authors of the report noted that, the transactions by Swiss firms 'present important risks of governance, since they occur in contexts characterized by weak institutions and endemic corruption.

Despite their importance, we learned that these sales escape all regulation and do not benefit as much as they should to the citizenry. Trading companies also contribute to making these nontransparent transactions. With this last observation, the reporter recommend that "Governments of public oil companies and oil-producing African countries, to develop standards promoting integrity in the selection of buyers and the determination of the sale price, including the publication of details of the State share of oil sales".

At the same time, the report states that, Switzerland is invited to "assume its responsibility of world trading of raw materials, by adopting a regulation forcing firms in this sector to disclose all payments they make to Governments and oil companies public, including payments related to the trading activity. The federal Council should therefore review its draft regulation presented on June 25, 2014, which excluded trading.

Furthermore, "the Governments of other places of trade, including the European Union, the United States and China, should also include the activity of trading in their legislation on the transparency of payments to Governments', suggests the report prepared on the basis of data from the "10 major petroleum exporting countries of sub-Saharan Africa.