Chad-Cameroon: oil, injustice and despair; Two years after oil started to flow through the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, the promised knock-on effect on development along the route has not materialised. Tansa Musa reports from Yaounde.

Eight-thirty in the morning at the Mapinini sandy beach in southern Cameroon is when the first fishermen come ashore after six long hours at sea. Family members as well as market women turn up with large headpans in anticipation of a good catch. But their expectations soon turn sour as the fishermen arrive empty-handed.

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"I have been fishing since I was 14, but I've never seen anything like this," says Joseph Ngoudi, 54, as he alights from his canoe, pointing to three small fishes in the canoe. "This can't even feed just one member of my family or earn me a franc to buy myself a cigarette."

While he is still complaining, David Ndzie, 25, rocks his boat, attracting the attention of the market women. His story is worse. During the six hours at sea, he was not able to catch one fish. "You can see I have nothing," he tells the expectant market women, throwing open his hands.

The small crowd turns away dejectedly, cursing the Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO). They hold the company responsible for the decimation of fish stocks near Kribi as it destroyed a reef during the construction of the maritime section of the 107km Chad-Cameroon pipeline.

"These people only cared about their pipeline and the money they will make from it," an angry elderly woman says. "They cared little about us. They destroyed the rock that shielded the water in which fish used to breed. They promised to replace it, but have done nothing. Our men are earning less money, our children are out of school, and we risk starving."

Completed in 2003, the $3.7bn oil pipeline, the biggest foreign investment project in sub-Saharan Africa to date, involved the drilling of 300 oil wells in southern Chad's Doba region and the construction of the pipeline to an offshore loading facility on the Cameroonian coast.

The terminal is connected to the port of Kribi by an 11km underwater pipeline. It was during the construction of this marine pipeline that COTCO destroyed the rocky outcrop that used to give the fishing community of Mapinini their bountiful catches.

In approving the project, developed by ExxonMobil, Chevron and Petronas, the World Bank said it was "an unprecedented framework to transform oil wealth into direct benefits for the poor." The Bank added that the project would generate substantial revenues--some $2.5bn for Chad and $500m for Cameroon over its 28-year lifespan--which the two governments would invest in poverty reduction programmes such as health, education and rural development.

But despite the promised economic gains, the project generated widespread controversy with domestic and international NGOs warning that it would follow the same pattern as oil exploration elsewhere in Africa, a pattern littered with tales of corruption, human rights violations, environmental destruction, misery and civil war.

"People in Chad and Cameroon are poor and need assistance that will improve their livelihoods and chances for future development, not aid that will enrich transnational oil companies and an elite ruling class," warned Friends of the Earth International. "The World Bank should not finance this project at this time as it cannot guarantee human rights will be respected or that the environment will be protected. Once the money is flowing, the unholy trinity of oil, power and corruption will make corrective action difficult," it predicted.

But the World Bank ignored the appeals and gave its blessing to the project. To counter the critique, the Bank put in place several safeguard measures, including monitoring mechanisms aimed at strengthening the ability of the Chadian and Cameroonian governments to implement an environmental management plan.

However, two years after the oil and money started to flow, these safeguard measures have proven to be limited in scope and inefficient. Complaints from people in the 110 villages along the pipeline have been numerous--from fishermen in Kribi to people in the Bandevouri-Bipindi-Lolordof region, and cocoa farmers in Ngoumou and Nkoltala.

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To date, COTCO has still not fulfilled its promise of compensation for the reef destroyed in Kribi nor replaced all the fishing nets broken during the construction. At the Bwambe beach, for example, only 70 nets were provided for 2,000 fishermen and were of such low quality they hardly lasted three months. The fishermen say they now have to go much farther out to sea for a reasonable catch, but their small canoes and weak nets cannot withstand the rougher seas. Cameroon's civic and human rights organisations have documented about 400 cases of people who have been seriously affected by the project and yet have not been adequately compensated.

The story from across the border in Chad is not much better. Activists who came to Yaounde (in Cameroon) to attend a seminar on the pipeline in September said they had seen no sign of the promised schools and roads since oil began to flow in 2003.

"I want to tell the World Bank that all the publicity they made around this project has amounted to nothing," said Urbain Moyombaye, who represents the interests of people from the Miandoum area in the Doba region where oil has been exploited. He said the project was a complete failure, with people continuing to live in poverty and misery.

Lydie Beassemda of the Alternative Research and Monitoring Group, a pipeline watchdog run by activists in Chad, agreed: "After three years, we are not seeing the promised benefits of the project. What we expect from the World Bank today is to put pressure on the Chadian government to respect its written undertaking to direct oil revenues to benefit the poor masses."

The pipeline project is a tale of shattered local economies, ruined farmers, polluted water systems and underpaid construction workers. "From all I have seen, there are no tangible benefits to the affected populations who have paid a hefty price for having the pipeline pass near their homes or through their fields," said Korinna Horta, a senior environmental economist with America's Environmental Defence who has followed up the project from its inception.

"On a recent trip to Cameroon," he added, "I visited villages north and south of Yaounde which are close to the pipeline. What I have seen is a picture of despair and profound injustice felt by local people."