Campaign group says both Uganda and UK complicit in dodgy oil deals

A leading UK environmental campaign group says that both the British and Ugandan governments are complicit in allowing oil exploration deals in Uganda which are likely to lead to excessive profits for the oil companies and little benefit for the people. Taimour Lay who is a PLATFORM campaigner based in Uganda says that a number of organisations are so concerned at the deals which have been signed for oil production in the Lake Albert region that they are challenging them in court in the UK. Action is being taken in Britain because that is where arbitration over regulation into oil deals is decided. The World Development Movement, along with PLATFORM and People and Planet, are going to court to challenge the UK Treasury's decision to finance Royal Bank of Scotland, the mainly state owned bank which supports Tullow Oil, saying the support ignores the government's own environmental and human rights criteria–contained in the Treasury's Green Book–when providing funds for investment projects around the world.