'The best thing that could happen to the country is if no oil is found'  

The Guardian has a report on the "curse of oil" at work in west Africa - 'The best thing that could happen to the country is if no oil is found'.

Luis Prazeres was the first native-born airline captain in São Tomé and Príncipe, and the country's first minister of natural resources. He knew a lot about flying and nothing about oil. But neither did anyone else in the tiny African island nation, which had just been told it was on the verge of a petroleum boom.

"There were all these foreign companies telling us that we had huge oil reserves, and bringing us agreements to sign," said Prazeres, who took up his minister's post in 1999. "Nobody here understood how complex it was."

Other governments are now finding themselves in similar situations. Rising oil prices have led to a surge in exploration in countries with little or no petroleum experience. Hopes of petrodollar bonanzas have already been raised in Ghana and Uganda, while prospecting companies are crawling over Gambia, Madagascar, Tanzania and Somalia.

Yet São Tomé's bitter experience should serve as a cautionary tale. In the decade since a little known Texas oil firm wandered into government offices with an audacious plan, the 160,000 inhabitants of the lush, somnolent islands have seen dreams of their country becoming the next Brunei or Kuwait melt away in the equatorial sun.

Their leaders have signed some of the most lopsided petroleum contracts in history. Bribes have allegedly been offered and pocketed. Regional bullies have muscled in, and in May the government fell to a no-confidence vote. "We have already seen everything that goes with an oil boom," said Rafael Branco, the newly appointed prime minister. "Everything, except a single drop of oil."