Source: upstreamonline.com 02/03/2010The Ugandan government has defied pressure to disclose the terms of its agreements with oil companies, saying that would greatly weaken its position in future licensing rounds.
A Chief Magistrate's court in the capital Kampala dismissed the case filed by Charles Mpagi and Izama Angelo, senior journalists at local newspaper the Daily Monitor who described themselves as private citizens in their petition.
"Government business doesn't have to be necessarily in the public domain... The applicants have not demonstrated that public interest in this case overrides private interest," the judgment read.
Late last year, another group, Greenwatch, filed a similar case against the government.
Explorers discovered commercial petroleum deposits in 2006 in the Albertine Graben area that sits on Uganda's western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Production is expected to start later this year.
The journalists said in their suit that the government's refusal to disclose the PSAs protected the interests of a "handful of shareholders" against 31 million Ugandans in whose trust the government owned the petroleum.
They built their case around the country's Access to Information Act, meant to allow free access to information in public offices except where disclosure jeopardizes national security or privacy of an individual.
"We argued that. . .disclosure of these agreements is essential to achieving transparency. This is our belief and we might consider appealing," Mpagi said in a Reuters report.
Uganda has signed five PSAs. Among the companies operating in the country are Britain's Heritage Oil, Tullow Oil, Dominion Oil and Neptune Petroleum.
A Chief Magistrate's court in the capital Kampala dismissed the case filed by Charles Mpagi and Izama Angelo, senior journalists at local newspaper the Daily Monitor who described themselves as private citizens in their petition.
"Government business doesn't have to be necessarily in the public domain... The applicants have not demonstrated that public interest in this case overrides private interest," the judgment read.
Late last year, another group, Greenwatch, filed a similar case against the government.
Explorers discovered commercial petroleum deposits in 2006 in the Albertine Graben area that sits on Uganda's western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Production is expected to start later this year.
The journalists said in their suit that the government's refusal to disclose the PSAs protected the interests of a "handful of shareholders" against 31 million Ugandans in whose trust the government owned the petroleum.
They built their case around the country's Access to Information Act, meant to allow free access to information in public offices except where disclosure jeopardizes national security or privacy of an individual.
"We argued that. . .disclosure of these agreements is essential to achieving transparency. This is our belief and we might consider appealing," Mpagi said in a Reuters report.
Uganda has signed five PSAs. Among the companies operating in the country are Britain's Heritage Oil, Tullow Oil, Dominion Oil and Neptune Petroleum.
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