The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) recently released the list of beneficiaries from its Fund for International Development (OPEC Fund). Among the countries to benefit from the $1 billion loans and grants extended by OPEC Fund are The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Chad and Senegal. The fund would extend the sum of $35 million to Cote d’Ivoire for on-lending to operators of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) firms to enable them create jobs. Economists believe that SMEs create more jobs than giant conglomerates because of their strange structures. That is why the OPEC Fund is determined to bolster the SMEs job creating capabilities in Cote d’Ivoire.
The fund will also extend $50 million to the country to support the procurement and export of cocoa. Cote d’Ivoire has overtaken Ghana as the world leader in cocoa production.
Senegal will receive $60 million as loan from the fund to beef up its Food Sovereignty Support Project.
OPEC Fund will advance $30 million to Sierra Leone to fund its Livestock and Livelihoods Development Programme. Sierra Leone will also receive a grant of $2 million from the fund.
The Gambia will receive $20 million from OPEC Fund to finance its Rural Infrastructure Development Programme.
OPEC Fund will also extend $16 million to Chad to enable the impoverished African nation in the Sahara Desert to finance its Rice Farming Development Project.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer of crude oil, was conspicuously missing from the list. Many are worried that given Nigeria’s multi-faceted economic and social problems, it is even more qualified for the loans and grants than some of the countries listed as beneficiaries.
For instance, Nigeria is battling food inflation of 40 per cent and the OPEC Fund is designed to, among other things, fight food insecurity.
Besides, the fund which is also designed for the tackling of energy crisis in beneficiary countries could be used to combat Nigeria’s epileptic power supply which has seen the faltering national grid collapse 12 times since January 2024.
Nigeria has a very feeble public power supply system that has compelled some foreign direct investors to flee the country in recent years due to the high cost of generating power.
Adebayo Adelabu, Nigeria’s minister of power, recently lamented that Nigeria’s public power facilities generate a scant 4,000 megawatts of electricity per day, while private generators generate 40,000 megawatts daily.
That probably explains why foreign direct investors prefer Ghana to Nigeria despite its huge population and economic endowment.
Above all, Nigeria recorded a whopping 32.6 per cent deficit in OPEC crude oil quota requirement in the third quarter of 2024. That amounted to a colossal loss of $3.2 billion in oil revenue for the period under review. Many see that as enough reason to have qualified Africa’s most populous country for the loan and grants from OPEC Fund.
The press raised resounding queries over Nigeria’s absence in the list of loans beneficiaries. Ironically, no one was willing to provide answers.
Even OPEC was curiously silent on the matter probably because it expected everyone to know the fundamentals governing the disbursement of funds in the development scheme.
However, Nigeria’s conspicuous absence from the list of beneficiaries of the loans and grants from OPEC Fund is dictated by the concepts laid down by its founding fathers.
The decision for the founding of OPEC Fund for International Development was taken at a meeting of the heads of states of OPEC-member countries in Algiers, Algeria in 1975. The fund was consequently founded in 1976.
The fund’s support for international development projects is entirely independent on what member countries receive from their oil revenue. However, it has remained the manifestation of its member countries’ ambition to create a fairer, more equitable and prosperous world.
The fund is the only globally mandated development institution that provides financing from member countries to non-member countries exclusively.
Statutorily, OPEC Fund is contributed by OPEC member countries for the funding of developments in non-member partner countries throughout the globe.
The fund’s major aim is to bolster infrastructure, food security, renewable energy and economic resilience among non-member partner countries.
That probably explains why Nigeria was conspicuously missing in the list of beneficiary countries published by the global oil cartel. Nigeria as a member of OPEC cannot benefit from the fund. The five countries in the list of beneficiaries are all non-members of OPEC.
Since its founding in 1976 and commencement of funding in 1982, OPEC Fund has committed $27 billion to development projects in 125 countries.
Blueprint commends its resilience and determination to entrench a fairer and more prosperous world where inequality is reduced to the lowest level. We expect the fund to move to greater heights.