Local issues

Community programmes

The Group has continued its programme of communicating with and supporting local communities in the West Nile area and has launched a wide variety of initiatives which can be categorised into five main areas:

  1. Promoting wider awareness of the Company and the oil industry.
    At an early stage of its operational activities, Neptune established a Visitor Centre in the Arua main library and this required a major refurbishment programme for it to be usable. This had a major local impact. It is strategically located in central Arua and the improvement and restocking of the library has transformed the reading culture amongst the local communities and especially students in the West Nile region, increasing the daily attendance from 5 in previous years to an average of 140 in 2008. A modest fund has also been committed to support production of educational books on Uganda's oil industry and the Uganda "Oil Calendar" to increase the local community's awareness of the oil industry.
  2. Establishing a strong local identity through employment and training of locals to manage key areas of Neptune's business.
    Neptune is recognised in Uganda for employing a very high percentage of Ugandans in the company compared to other foreign organisations currently operating in the country. The local population will continue to benefit from Neptune's commitment to developing local content participations in the country's oil industry.
  3. Communication with local communities in all areas to keep them informed of operations.
    An intensive communications program has been carried out in the community since early 2008 to explain the results of the seismic programme and to prepare local people for the advent of the drilling phase, with town hall meetings, school presentations, radio phone-ins and open air meetings in markets and religious venues.
  4. Consultation to gain feedback and understand community priorities for Tower's social investments.
    The feedback from these meetings has enabled Neptune to design projects that are relevant and beneficial to most citizens. Further consultations with local and central government has been undertaken to ensure consolidated support across the relevant government departments. Key initiatives are described below:
    • Social investments which improve local access to fresh water and to health and safety awareness.
      Initiatives within the community are described in the previous section.
    • Working with local communities to initiate commercial activities which could develop into sustainable enterprises.
      A number of pilot projects have been initiated including mosquito net fabrication, honey production, and widespread fruit tree and amaranth growing projects. Further assistance in future will be provided to facilitate the marketing of local produce.
  5. Building local capacity for the long term through encouragement of local educational initiatives and use of local labour and contractors.
    A particular emphasis has been placed on training and employing local labour for many project-related operations as well as Company sponsored community programmes such as tree planting and road improvements. Whenever possible, local contractors from the Licence area are employed to ensure that local capacity is developed and that income benefits spread to the impoverished communities. It is expected that exploration success would lead to establishing a long-term training and secondary education programme for Neptune's oil operations with the aim of educating and training Ugandans in order that they can assume responsibility for managing Uganda's oil industry as quickly as possible. Tower aims to focus on developing such potential for people from the West Nile area.

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