Unethical practices relating to development

In 1998, the World Bank was considering funding the project of an international consortium of oil companies to develop oil-fields in southern Chad; also to build a 600 mile pipeline through Cameroon for export, which would run through the rainforest homelands of the Pygmy minority of traditional hunters and gatherers. World Bank proponents claimed that the project would alleviate poverty because revenue from the oil development can be spent on poverty programmes. Since both Governments have problems with corruption, the local communities expressed little confidence that they will see any of the money from oil development. Critics of the project claim it will enrich transnational companies and an elite ruling class and divert limited development resources away from investments in health, education, environmental protection, and infrastructure that provides clean drinking water and sanitation. A parliamentarian who spoke out against the project was gaoled for three years in Chad.