By Patty Magubira, The Citizen Reporter
Posted Thursday, October 16 2014 at 10:38
In Summary
The acting director for the Contracts Division in
the AGC, Mr Yohane Masara, said the training for about 20 civil servants
from different sectors was tailor-made for deals on Liquidified Natural
Gas.
The acting director for the Contracts Division in
the AGC, Mr Yohane Masara, said the training for about 20 civil servants
from different sectors was tailor-made for deals on Liquidified Natural
Gas.
He said the training was compounded by the
increasing number of negotiations pertaining to minerals, particularly
the emerging oil and gas sub-sector.
The civil servants have been drawn from the AGC
Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar and Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory
Authority.
Others are from Tanzania Revenue Authority,
Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, and the Prime Minister’s
Office. Government officials have often come under attack for
negotiating shoddy deals that have many times not sat well with the
public and embarrassed the state.
Mr Masara said three seasoned lawyers from K &
L Gates in the US, the UK, and Australia were invited to drill the
civil servants.
With the largest network of offices worldwide, K
& L Gates practices law on an integrated basis and is recognised as a
leader in the private equity, hedge fund, venture capital, consumer
mortgage finance, AIM listing, outsourcing, and Employee Stock Ownership
Plan areas.
The prime goal of the training is to build the
civil servants’ capacity to negotiate energy deals for the country to
benefit from the godsend, said Mr Masara, explaining that the resource
persons were knowledgable, as they worked in the sector for over 15
years each.
The Energy engineer from MEM, Mr Styden
Rwebangira, said the training was part of the Capacity Development in
Energy Sector and Extractive Industry Programme.
“The training, intends to prepare the civil
servants for the business of gas which has to be packaged for it to be
transported to the market,” he explained.
He said the trainers had vast experience, as they
had for years been serving as consultants for both investors and
governments on how each side can defend its interests in the deals.
They will, among other things, train the
multi-sectoral civil servants on several types of contracts for them to
select feasible ones.
“We will share experience of lessons from around the world to
optimise the greatest value for this country to maximise on what it can
reap from the LNG,”one of the resource persons, Mr Steven Sparling,
said.
He said the LNG had a potential for generating revenue and reducing tensions pitying communities, investors and the government.
“Best projects are those which find ways of sharing benefits equitably including technologies,” Mr Sparling explained.
His colleague from Australia, Ms Clare Power, said
owing to multinationals being well organised with vast experience;
governments had to be prepared before going to the negotiation table
with them.
“Big companies have a lot of information about the
value and economics of the projects in question; they are surrounded by
the best expertise in accounts and law.
“Governments come in with a disadvantage, as the
parties they negotiate with know much more than they do, explained Ms
Power, cautioning the trainees over a trend among most investors to
divide them.
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