‘OIL DISCOVERY MUST BE HANDLED CAREFULLY’

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 12:08:19 +0000

By Buumba Chimbulu

DICOVERY of oil can either be a curse or a blessing so it is important for the Zambian government to be very careful with how it will use the commodity once it is found in Northern Province, British High commissioner to Zambia, Fergus Cochrane, has warned.

Mr Cochrane said there was a high possibility that Northern Province had oil as its geology was similar to that of countries where oil had been discovered such as Uganda.

He was speaking in an interview on the side-lines of the launch of the Tullow Oil Exploration, a British company that will undertake geological surveys in Kasama and Luapula Provinces.

“This company has successfully found oil and gas in other African countries in Kenya and Uganda so they believe that there is a chance that there is oil in northern Zambia because the geology is very similar to where they found oil in other countries,

“But it will be very important for the Zambian government to use that oil well, it can be good or bad. In other places, oil is a blessing and a curse and maybe the advantage for Zambia is that you can learn from those lessons and make sure the oil is a blessing for Zambia and not a curse,” he said.

Mr. Cochrane also said Zambian shad to be patient as the exploration would take years, noting that once the oil was discovered it would transform Zambia’s economy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cochrane said over US$5million had been invested in growing potatoes in Mbala for exports into the Great Lakes Region through the Department for International Development.

He said Zambia through Northern Province had a huge export market to the Great Lakes region such as Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Agriculture is certainly an area that we recognize and interested in, here in Northern Province, we have a project where we are investing over US$5million into a farm in Katito in Mbala and so that is exciting to see potatoes grown in this part of Zambia. You have a great export market with the Great Lakes Region, DRC, Rwanda and all of that area. So we want to do our best to help Zambia diversify and make more in the context of agriculture,” he said.