Fuelling Prosperity - A fiscal guide for Somalia's gas and oil

[Zak12]

I've been reading a book given to me from my family who are friends with the author. It was published recently so I wanted to know if any of you guys might have heard of it. Its a nice little primer on how Somalia should manage its natural oil and gas resources, outlining many steps and giving a good deep dive in transparency, environmental impact and legal loopholes companies abuse.

I was especially interested in the comparisons it made to other countries such as Nigeria and Venezuela as it outlines why certain nations failed to properly utilize their resources (aka dutch disease/resource curse) while other nations such as Botswana and Norway were successful in driving strong development via diversification of their economies by investing in education, health and more.

It even already warns of the how unbalanced the recent PSA between Somalia and Turkey is and how it will take 6-8 years until Somalia starts to see revenue. Here is the link as well as full title.

Fuelling Prosperity - Hardcover

FUELING PROSPERITY - EQUITABLE RESOURCES, EQUITABLE FUTURE: OIL & GAS FISCAL SYSTEMS GUIDE FOR THE SOMALI PEOPLE'S WEALTHEmerging from a long period of civil unrest, the Somali people face a unique challenge: harnessing the potential of their oil and gas reserves while lacking established...

0jryze-gg.myshopify.com

Does anyone have any other texts I could read about this topic btw?

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@Idilinaa @Barkhadle1520

@Midas

 

[Idilinaa]

I feel the book is a bit hasty , there really isn’t much that’s been finalized or made public about the revenue-sharing agreement yet. There’s still a lot we don’t know.

From the NTP, we do know that the government has existing revenue-sharing mechanisms with other member states and that they plan to involve domestic oil and gas companies. It would’ve been better if the authors had asked more questions and pressed for greater transparency on this.

That said, Somalia’s economy is already quite diversified, and any revenue generated from one sector typically gets channeled into others. Because of this, I doubt we’ll see a Dutch disease scenario or an outcome similar to Nigeria. People really need to understand how Somali society operates, instead of casually drawing comparisons that ignore the social and economic context.

With that said, it’s still crucial for the government to get this right, since this will become an important revenue channel for financing state operations and development. In that sense, the book could still serve as a useful guideline to follow.

One thing that really stood out to me after looking at the author’s bio is how tragic it is that the FGS doesn’t seem to recognize the number of Somali experts who have worked in the oil and gas industry for decades even generations now in the Gulf and elsewhere. It doesn’t look like they’ve reached out to these professionals to take leadership roles in this process.

What a waste of diaspora human capital. The government has its economic development strategy completely backward , they emphasize foreign investment and foreign expertise, which carries its own risks, while overlooking a large and capable Somali business and professional community right in front of them.