"A Right to Preemption is a legal or contractual right given to private or public entities to acquire property in priority to any other person and when the owner shows its willingness to sell. "(Source Wikipedia). This topic may be limited in this regard to substantiate how the state of President Macky Sall currently governs Senegal expensive to people and how much they can sweeten the back of the Senegalese people through shortfalls left spinning they s 'arrogate to beneficiaries through financial shenanigans.The preemptive right claimed by the Australian dealer "FAR" in this article (August 23, 2016 on the site Jeune Afrique) is given priority in Senegal. Our country has granted 3 licenses to main dealer "Cairn Energy" (see the contract extracts are online) for blocks Sangomar Offshore, Rufisque Offshore and Rufisque Offshore Profond.
The MAL is that, given the opacity in the management of oil fields of business and gas recently discovered in Senegal, the Senegalese people can know by lack of transparency if the state of Senegal argued or not his LAW FIRST REFUSAL whenever the opportunity arises. The right of first refusal of the Senegalese state has priority even before that "Woodside" has decided to buy all the shares offered by the dealer "ConocoPhillips' (35%). It is also a priority to that of "FAR" who believes and is seeking that "the period of its pre-emptive right has not yet started" with respect to the sale made by "ConocoPhillips" in Woodside.Nothing informs people of Senegal that the state of Senegal has decided to do, with evidence in support of its preemptive right about various financial transactions since the allocation of all-out exploration licenses and operating deposits (gold, oil, gas, zircon, etc.): THE ASSERT or the ABORT?
The case of Sonatel is always there to serve as an example to all relevant license. In 1996, no less than 10% of the shares at the entry of France Telecom in the concession were sold to employees of the Sonatel group at low prices following a committed and very courageous struggle of the then union. This was thanks to the pre-emptive right of the state. The right of first refusal could allow the state of Senegal to initiate priority shareholder Senegalese populations including poor families, emigrants who inject millions of dollars a year in Senegal. Senegal is the fourth sub-Saharan African country official financial flows receiver from nationals living abroad. In 2007, it is $ 925 million that were injected by Senegalese immigrants in the country. As said above, this pre-emptive right may also allow the state to increase its equity stake in any concession when it is contractual license is awarded.
For example, the state might as well reserve the right to buy 15% of the 35% sold by "ConocoPhillips" at least to prove that he has no less for it. So like Morocco, Senegal could not expect more than 10% but 25% of future field development. The other example is that Tigo has for some time intended to sell his Senegalese firm. Nothing prevents the state such use its profits in the Sonatel group and other structures or make a loan to acquire TIGO. Instead, the state prefers to impoverish our people by using foreign funds without any control or leaving France Telecom buy Tigo freely without asserting its sovereign right of first refusal on the license it granted leave to impose throughout award of contract license in Senegal. What's worse is that these foreign investors receive when operating their license or tax havens magouillent the knowledge of the state to take out the profits from the exploitation of allocated licenses.
This right of first refusal for example, enables the state of Senegal to demand, whenever a financial transaction can take place, shares in addition to increase its 10% (PINUT) in all the courts of operating mines . Much more than the minimum possible extraction estimate of gross oil recently made by "Cairn Energy" jumped 430 million barrels of oil to 2.7 BILLION barrels. Do Senegalese realize that this deposit is world class, like the deposits discovered in the UAE and Angola. it is equivalent. If in any case, the state has attempted anything is that it does not deserve to represent the people of Senegal? If countries in the UAE and their populations can enjoy their resources is at least monarchies demanded a minimum profit of these discoveries certainly higher deposits to 10% imposed in the mining code of Senegal. Since coming to power, and even before that, Macky Sall speaks overhaul of the Mining Code but nothing else honeyed speeches in the ear of the patriots but zero in materialisation. The Senegalese state always used to sell licenses in all. This is what is causing this unfortunate 10% share in all concessions.
The other question to check on taxation. Since the company "ConocoPhillips Senegal BV", created by the American firm "ConocoPhillips", is a branch or subsidiary established in Senegal, IFCS (ie the Public Treasury Senegal) has the right to tax these financial transactions knowing that taxes on income of these companies are usually "forgiven" with the mining code in force outside the "Operation" phase. Normally, traces of this tax should appear in the Public Treasury accounts. Unless incompetence, the state turned a blind eye through bribes and / or actions by corruption. It was always suspected in the acquisition of 60% shares of "Petrotim Ltd" with "Kosmos Energy" on the gas deposits licenses and oil discovered in the offshore blocks St. Louis. Initially, 90% of the shares were initially allocated Petrotim Ltd. by the state. The same pre-emption rights should operate to increase the share of the state of Senegal in this concession when Petrotim sold 30% to Kosmos Energy.
Recently, the same situation seems to have been made for the creation of opaque bank "Bustard SA" with 10 billion of capital.This bank has the property, a minister-counselor of Macky Sall named Baba Diaw. Its creation coincides with the sale of a license to operate a gold deposit in British society named "Toro Gold" which was also achieved without transparency. Would not it was the attention of the "Coalition Jubanti Senegal", this topic will remain unknown until he explodes. Senegalese should know that the primary responsibility for poverty in our country are our leaders who relayed to the head of the state since the so-called independence. All this must change.
By Aboubakrine Ndiaye
FAR Price at posting:
7.4¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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