Researcher deems decree granting Neptune Oil monopoly illegal
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Corbeau News Centrafrique
On Radio Ndekeluka, Paul Crescent Beninga, a former researcher at the University of Bangui, says the decree granting Neptune Oil a monopoly violates the 2007 law. According to him, the law on liberalising the oil sector, whose implementing decree is still awaited, would merely be a government pretext.
Title: “Researcher deems decree granting Neptune Oil monopoly illegal”
Text:
Central African researcher Paul Crescent Beninga deems illegal the decree granting Neptune Oil an oil monopoly, a company he claims does not exist under Central African law. Invited to Radio Ndekeluka’s Patara political debate, the civil society spokesperson within the working group and former researcher at the University of Bangui says the government cannot justify the measure by adopting a new law on liberalising the sector.
Paul Crescent Beninga argues that the April 2007 law had already liberalised oil activities, with the exception of storage, which remained under a state monopoly. He therefore considers that awaiting the implementing decree for the new law passed by the National Assembly does not, on its own, resolve the issue of the monopoly granted to Neptune Oil, according to his comments on Radio Ndekeluka.
The researcher thus believes that the debate over new liberalisation diverts attention from the legal issue posed by the decree granting Neptune Oil a monopoly. He calls on Central Africans not to reduce the oil controversy to the entry into force of the new law, according to Radio Ndekeluka.
