The African Energy Chamber (AEC) will take Western financiers to court over what the energy advocacy group calls “financial apartheid'’ against Africa’s oil and gas development. In a recent interview, the chairman of the African Energy Chamber (AEC) NJ Ayuk denounced the fact that a different criterion exists for financing oil and gas projects for Europe and the U.S. than for African nations.
“Natural gas is treated as a fossil fuel in Africa, but it’s seen as green energy in Europe,” Ayuk said in an interview with IntelliNews published on August 7. “It’s clear discrimination, it’s outrageous and it should not be happening. You can’t have one set of standards for the European and American energy industries and another for the African energy industry. This is very unjust, hypocritical and colonial.”
He pointed to the fact that financing became immediately available for European LNG projects after the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict on the basis of “energy security,” and the EU has defined gas as sustainable, but investments in this sector in Africa has been curtailed based on so-called “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) criteria.
“We want to end these very discriminatory lending practices towards Africa. This is financial apartheid in the name of ESG and the name of climate change,” he said. “We’re going to look at it as a human rights matter. We believe in the system of justice, that it will give us a fair hearing.”
Ajuk said the AEC plans to launch litigation proceedings against Western financial institutions in Western courts next year, “with the help of some of the best law firms in the world,” and the support of various African states.
He emphasized the fact that 600 million Africans have no access to electricity, while 900 million have no access to clean cooking fuels, which creates serious health risks.
“There’s a whole new generation of Africans that are saying, we want to have the same standards of living that Europeans have. It’s important we create the opportunities and jobs right here at home, rather than Africans having to cross the Mediterranean to look for jobs in Europe,” he argued.