UAE - Part 3 - Dubai's Decision Makers

The decision making system in Dubai is fairly simple. The decision makers for the hydrocarbon sector are a handful of men controlled by Dubai's strongman, Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who holds several positions apart from his being the crown prince of the emirate and the UAE's defence minister. The UAE's federal super-structure has no authority over the petroleum sector and related industries, be that in Dubai or in the other six member emirates. Each of the emirates has its own government and petroleum department or national oil company. There is no real co-ordination among the seven emirates concerning their industrial sectors. When one emirate promotes a major industrial project which may duplicate or seriously compete with a similar venture already operating in another emirate, contacts and mediation between the two may or may not result in agreement. Such agreement could be that the former party drops the new project in return for a favour from the latter party, or the latter allows the former to go ahead with the project in return for a favour. Favours could range from equity in the existing venture to partnership in the new project, or a concession in another field of industry. Horse-trading and rivalries are elements of an old tribal tradition in this part of the world. For example the current UAE Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Obeid Saif Al Nassiri, is an Abu Dhabian who in a way still belongs to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). When he attends meetings of OPEC, OAPEC, the GCC or other multilateral institutions, he is formally to be recognised as representing the UAE which by implication should include Dubai and the others. But in reality this is not the case. Before he makes a serious commitment in the name of the UAE at such meetings, he must get his instructions from no authority other than Abu Dhabi's Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC). And none of the other emirates would be bound by such commitment. Before becoming UAE oil minister in May 1997, Nassiri was director of the Commodities Department in ADIA, a post he had held since 1976. Educated at Baghdad University, from where he graduated with a B.Sc in economics in 1976, Nassiri is also a member of the National Consultative Council, deputy chairman of the UAE Bankers Society and a member of the board of the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (see 1997 survey of Abu Dhabi in Vol. 48).