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Working Paper
No. 444
Wil Hout
June 2007
‘BUILDING ON OUR OWN ABILITIES’:
Suriname’s State Oil Company as a Development Agent
2
ISSN 0921-0210
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3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT 4
1 INTRODUCTION 5
2 THE STATE IN DEVELOPMENT 7
3 SURINAME’S STATE AND POLITICAL SYSTEM 9
4 STAATSOLIE AS A ‘POCKET OF EFFICIENCY’ 12
5 ‘BUILDING ON OUR OWN ABILITIES’: STAATSOLIE’S
D
OUBLE STRATEGY 15
6 C
ONCLUSION 20
NOTES 22
REFERENCES 23
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEWS 25
4
ABSTRACT
This paper analyses the conditions under which the Surinamese State Oil
Company (Staatsolie) has been consolidated, not only as a firm oriented at the
production of oil, but also as a development agent. Staatsolie’s chances to
success seemed rather slim at its creation in the beginning of the 1980s, mainly
because of the non-developmental, patrimonial character of Surinamese
politics and the nature of Suriname’s state, which has traditionally been
oriented toward patronage and clientelism.
The analysis documents the origins of Staatsolie and focuses on its
commitment to the acquisition and further development of technological and
managerial expertise. At present, Staatsolie ranks among the most successful
companies in Suriname and its contributions to the economy of this small
middle-income country are considerable.
The success of Staatsolie’s attempt to become a development agent is
attributed, in particular, to the company’s double strategy. The internal part of
this strategy, derived from the management vision and ideological commitment
of the company’s leadership, was aimed at developing technological and
management skills. The external part of the strategy was aimed at steering away
from political influences on the company and playing out politically the formal-
legal position of the firm in the petroleum sector. After 25 years of Staatsolie, it
is argued that the factors that were responsible for the company’s success may
turn out to be the main challenges for the years ahead.
Keywords
Rent-seeking, oil industry, patrimonial politics, Latin America, Suriname
5
‘BUILDING ON OUR OWN ABILITIES’:
Suriname’s State Oil Company as a Development Agent
1 I
NTRODUCTION
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the State Oil Company of Suriname, in
December 2005, was greeted with great enthusiasm by many Surinamese. This
enthusiasm is nurtured not so much by the company’s role as an oil company –
which has remained quite modest in a world dominated by the ‘Seven Sisters’ –
but because of its position as a development agent. Well-informed observers of the
Surinamese economy argue that Staatsolie is one of the best run companies in
the country and, in important respects, a model for the management of
commercial firms (interviews, March/April 2004).
1
The success of the State Oil Company of Suriname (or Staatsolie, as it is
usually referred to) is paradoxical in several important respects. First, Staatsolie’s
achievements are remarkable because Suriname’s political system has
traditionally had important characteristics of a patrimonial state. Secondly, the
company’s success is noteworthy because Suriname, as one of the world’s best-
endowed reservoirs of natural resources (most notably, but not limited to,
bauxite, gold, oil and timber), has been a prime example of a primary
commodity producing and exporting country.
This paper argues that Staatsolie’s history does not conform to the theses of
the rentier state and political underdevelopment (Ross, 1999; Moore, 2001).
Contrary to the experience of other state-owned enterprises in the country, the
revenues earned by Staatsolie’s oil sales have not been siphoned off and used as
rents by the political elites. Threats that could have led to such misuse of funds
have been countered successfully. The company’s financial transfers to the
state have taken place on the basis of generally accepted norms. The company
has paid a normal dividend to its shareholders (the government of Suriname
and the Surinamese Planning Agency), set at 50 per cent of net profit in the
past several years. The rest of the company’s net profit was typically added to
the general reserve, and used for investment purposes. Apart from its dividend,
Staatsolie has paid the government an annual amount in corporate income tax,
which is mandatory for all companies in the country.
This case study has been prompted by several explicitly theoretical
considerations. The literature on patrimonial and rentier states tends to focus
on the macro, or state, level, and on the impact of rent-seeking, patronage and
clientelism on social processes and economic performance (cf. Schneider,
1987: 217-218). As a result of this focus, actors at the meso and micro level
have received far less exposure; studies that included such actors generally used
them to illustrate general patrimonialist or rent-seeking hypotheses. The
present study zeroes in on Staatsolie because the analysis of the company’s
attempt to be a development agent provides good insights into the scope and
limits of the patrimonial state.
Connected to this, the focus of this study on Staatsolie as a state-owned oil
company adds to the literature on the impact of economic sectors on the role
6
of the state in development and, in particular, to the analysis of the so-called
mining state and the petro-state (Shafer 1994; Karl 1997). The Surinamese
experience is, on the one hand, in accordance with the findings of previous
studies that the presence and export of minerals, in this case bauxite, have an
important influence on policy-making and governance of developing countries
and lead to a focus on the rents resulting from mineral exports. On the other
hand, however, the case of Staatsolie demonstrates that state-owned firms
outside the dominant sector may be capable to escape from the prevailing rent-
oriented behaviour and actually follow a relatively independent course, aimed
at developing technological and management skills. The conditions under
which these independent activities proved possible are the subject of this
paper, and it is hoped that the analysis of these conditions will contribute to
the understanding of similar ‘pockets of efficiency’ in similar rent-oriented
environments.
The argument of this paper is that Staatsolie was able to develop into a
‘pocket of efficiency’ largely because of the recognition of the company’s
management that the features specific to the petroleum sector in Suriname
would enable them to establish a relatively independent enterprise. The
conditions present in Suriname were quite different from those in other
developing countries where oil had been discovered, such as Venezuela, Iran,
Nigeria and Algeria (Karl, 1997: 197-208). One important factor in this was the
perception, until the late 1990s, that oil production was quite marginal to
Suriname’s economy. The dominance of other sources of rent (most notably,
bauxite and aid flows from the Netherlands) no doubt contributed greatly to
this outlook of the political elite. Staatsolie’s relatively independent functioning,
outside the realm of the state, enabled the company to build a corporate
culture and create public support that, eventually, sustained the company’s
claim to autonomy. Importantly, the 1997-1998 clash with the government –
which had laid eyes on Staatsolie’s reserves as a means to solve its financial
problems – led to a victory for Staatsolie as a result of successful popular
mobilisation supportive of home-grown economic activity and resistant to a
corrupt and rent-seeking elite.
Staatsolie can usefully be seen as a ‘pocket of efficiency’ in an otherwise
inefficient and rent-oriented public sector. The company is different from
some other pockets of efficiency that were set up by policians as a tool for
modernising the state apparatus, such as the Brazilian National Development
Bank founded in the 1960s (Evans, 1989: 577). Staatsolie does, however, have
certain features in common with the Brazilian petrochemical sector, where the
development of industrial capacity in the 1970s resulted from the activities of a
relatively independent state enterprise, Petroquisa. According to Evans (1989:
580), the ‘ties … to private capital, both domestic and transnational’ proved
important conditions for the success of Brazil’s petrochemical sector. As
Schneider (1987: 228) has noted, the desire to consolidate the company’s
market position and to diversify production resulted in pressure on the
Brazilian government to loosen the ties with the company and move towards a
different form of government intervention in the sector. The greater reliance
on private capital seems to stimulate a change of government policy as ‘some
investors prefer market uncertainty to the strategic uncertainty for political
products’ (Barzelay quoted by Schneider, 1987: 229).
7
Staatsolie, which has so far been part of the Surinamese public sector, has
accomplished a high degree of managerial and technological excellence, to a
large extent due to the skills of the company’s management to deal with the
political dynamics in the country. Largely as a result of their understanding of
the political environment, the company proved able to carve out a relatively
autonomous place in the public sphere, from where it could operate without
being subjected directly to political considerations. The pressures resulting
from the diversification of Staatsolie’s interests (among others, its refinery
activities and its evolving role in the national electricity sector) and from the
need to cooperate with foreign capital in the off-shore exploration of oil
resources may have the beneficial effects on Staatsolie’s autonomy alluded to by
Evans and Schneider in relation to the Brazilian context.
This paper is structured as follows. Sections 2 and 3 contain a discussion
of Suriname’s political system from the perspective of recent scholarship on
the role of the state in development, thus providing an argument why
Staatsolie’s role as a development agent is paradoxical. Section 4 discusses the
expansion of Staatsolie’s operations since 1980 and briefly analyses the
company’s contribution to Suriname’s economy and society. Section 5 analyses
the double strategy that Staatsolie adopted to effectuate its developmental role.
Section 6 contains some concluding observations.
2 THE STATE IN DEVELOPMENT
Recent scholarship shows various approaches to theorising the role of the state
in development. Two sets of approaches, in particular, seem to be pertinent to
the case of Suriname. The first relevant set of approaches relate variations in
state structure and state-society relations to variations in developmental
performance. The second group of approaches focus on the impact of sectoral
characteristics on state features and developmental outcomes.
Of the scholars taking the first approach, Peter Evans has had great
influence. He juxtaposed several ideal types of states, notably the ‘predatory’
and the ‘developmental’ forms. Predatory states ‘extract such large amounts of
otherwise investable surplus while providing so little in the way of “collective
goods” in return that they do indeed impede economic transformation’, while
developmental states ‘foster long-term entrepreneurial perspectives among
private elites by increasing incentives to engage in transformative investments
and lowering the risks’ (Evans, 1996: 44). Evans has conceptualised the
developmental state in terms of ‘embedded autonomy’, in an attempt to
highlight the combination of an insulated bureaucracy, organised on the basis
of Weberian rational-legal principles, and close relations between the state and
social (market) institutions. Most developing countries should, according to
Evans, be placed in an ‘intermediate’ category, with states ranking somewhere
between these two ideal types and combining predatory and developmental
features (Evans, 1989: 563, 1996: 60).
Evans’ ideal types have been criticised, among others, by Hutchcroft
(1998: 57), who argued that ‘Evans has overlooked important elements of
variation among patrimonial polities. In particular, by presenting Zaire as his
archetypal example of a state that fails to promote development, he does not
8
consider other cases that would also be patrimonial but be properly placed
elsewhere according to the relative strength of state apparatuses and business
interests’. Among the more patrimonial states, Hutchcroft (1998: 20, 45-55)
differentiates between patrimonial administrative states (or ‘bureaucratic
capitalism’, in which a bureaucratic elite extracts rents from the business sector,
such as in Thailand and Indonesia) and patrimonial oligarchic states (or ‘booty
capitalism’, where a powerful business class exploits an incoherent
bureaucracy, such as the Philippines).
Leftwich has put forward a classification of democratic non-
developmental states on the basis of the relative importance of class-oriented
or patronage-oriented political parties. ‘Class-compromise’ non-developmental
states, with Venezuela and South Africa as examples, are built on the
awareness of major political forces that certain radical changes that could be
beneficial from a developmental or social justice point of view, are not feasible
because of the opposition, with possibly non-democratic means, of others
(Leftwich, 2002: 70). ‘Party-alternation’ non-developmental states, such as
Jamaica and Costa Rica, are characterised by the existence of rival ‘cross-class’
parties, ‘each (when in power) dispensing clientelist patronage to its followers
and supporters, and each differentiated from the other mainly by a
combination of historical association, personal loyalties, anticipation of
patronage prospects, and – at times – ideological-policy orientations’
(Leftwich, 2002: 74).
The failure of many developing countries to transform into developmental
states can usefully be understood within the framework of ‘political
underdevelopment’ or the ‘rentier state’ (Ross, 1999; Moore, 2001, 2002). This
framework implies ‘that when governments gain most of their revenues from
external sources, such as resource rents or foreign assistance, they are freed
from the need to levy domestic taxes and become less accountable to the
societies they govern’ (Ross, 1999: 312). Following the same logic, states that
are based on rent-seeking are expected to be weaker and less effective, since
they have less incentive ‘to reduce the influence of patrimonial principles and
personal linkages when recruiting and managing the public service’ (Moore,
2002: 106).
The second set of approaches to the state in development that was
outlined above has related the dominance of certain economic sectors, such as
mining, to development outcomes and features of the state in developing
countries. According to several authors working in this tradition, certain types
of economic sectors are particularly conducive to rent-seeking practices. Shafer
(1994: 10, 23-24) has drawn attention to the prevalence of rent-seeking in so-
called mining states. Because the mining sector is highly capital intensive and
shows high economies of scale, and production and the employment of
production factors are very inflexible, the sector is characterised by monopoly
rents that are ‘easily tapped by the state’ (Shafer 1994: 35). The economic
dependence on a single resource, produced by an enclave-like industrial sector
that is dominated by foreign capital, generates extraordinary rents. These rents
are almost unrelated to the productive processes of the domestic economy and
are almost exclusively channeled to the state (Karl 1997: 47-48). Petro-states
take in a special place among mining states because of the sheer magnitude and
9
duration of the extraordinary rents that result from oil production and export
(Karl 1997: 49).
3 SURINAME’S STATE AND POLITICAL SYSTEM
Following up on the discussion of the characteristics of the state in
development in the previous section, Suriname would most aptly be
characterised as a party-alternating, democratic, non-developmental mining
state.
2
In addition to this, its post-World War II history shows that the country
has many features of a patrimonial administrative state, as described by
Hutchcroft, in which the state apparatus has dominated the economy and has
been a major source of rents for office holders and their clients (interview
Schalkwijk, 2 April 2004).
Since its independence (1975), Suriname’s per capita gross domestic
product has not experienced substantial growth, despite the fact that, since
World War II, Suriname has been one of the world’s major bauxite exporters
and the country ranks among the world’s best-endowed countries in terms of
natural resources. The Inter-American Development Bank (2001: 5) concluded
that the ‘[e]xploitation of Suriname’s large bauxite reserves has generated rents
that are large in relation to the economy’. Van Dijck (2001a: 57) has calculated
that bauxite mining and processing generated between 30 and 33 per cent of
Suriname’s GDP in the 1945-1975 period and, despite a decline in relative
importance, still accounted for an important 15 per cent of GDP at the end of
the twentieth century. Recent calculations by Monsanto (2005: 30-31) indicated
that the contribution of the bauxite industry to government revenues hovered
between 27 and 34 per cent in the 1961-1981 period.
In constant 1995 prices, Suriname’s GDP per capita peaked at $1,111 in
1977, fell to a low of $685 in 1987 and reached a level of $1,036 in 2001
(World Bank, 2003). The share of manufacturing in Suriname’s gross domestic
product fell from 12.9 to 8.6 per cent between 1989 and 1999 (Van Dijck,
2001b: 15). As Martin (2001: 52-76) has indicated, Suriname’s economic
situation was highly volatile during the 1990s, with clear boom-bust cycles
mainly as a result of fluctuations in alumina prices.
In addition to natural resources, aid has been another major source of
rents. Aid is estimated to have accounted for more than three-quarters of the
Surinamese government budget in the period between 1956 and 1975, and to
have amounted to more than Dfl. 1 billion in this twenty-year period
(Oostindie and Klinkers, 2001: 133-134). At the eve of independence in 1975,
the Dutch government provided Suriname with a development fund of
approximately € 1.95 billion. In per capita terms, Suriname received roughly
four to five times the median aid amount transferred to other lower-middle
income countries during the 1990s (Van Dijck, 2004: 43-45). There is
widespread agreement that the development fund has been spent largely on
prestige projects that have produced relatively little value added in terms of the
development of the country; as one critical observer of Surinamese politics put
it: ‘foreign aid to Suriname has not proven to be an economic lever. In
Suriname, the money has disappeared into a black hole’ (Silos, 2002: 4).
Foreign aid has also enabled Suriname to maintain its oversized public sector,
10
referred to as the ‘principal vehicle for sharing the rents’ (Inter-American
Development Bank, 2001: 41). Data reported by the Inter-American
Development Bank (2001: 39) show that, in 1998, the government provided
employment for 43.7 per cent of the total labour force.
With a brief interval of military rule between 1980 and 1987, Suriname’s
political system has been relatively democratic ever since the Statute of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands (1954) gave the Surinamese Staten (Parliament)
more powers. With the exception of the military era, Freedom House has rated
the Surinamese political system as free or partly free during its post-
independence period (Freedom House, 2005).
The post-war political system of Suriname has been characterised by the
existence of multiple political parties. Analysts agree that these parties are an
expression of the ethnic diversity of the country and that they have played an
important role in the emancipation of various ethnic groups, notably the
Creole (black) working class, the Hindustanis (East Indians) and Javanese (e.g.,
Ramsoedh, 2001: 95-96).
3
The first political parties in Suriname were founded in 1946, at a time
when franchise in the colony was still limited mainly to the light-skinned
Creole elite. This elite opposed the introduction of universal suffrage, but
when this was finally adopted for Suriname by the Dutch Parliament in 1949,
the elite shaped the electoral system to serve its interests. The country was
divided into several electoral constituencies that gave the Creoles, through their
major political vehicle Nationale Partij Suriname (NPS, National Party of
Suriname), an assured majority (Sedney, 1997: 20-21; Dew, 1978: 74-82).
The political dynamics of the 1950s can be understood against the
background of the attempt of the light-skinned Creoles to retain their hold to
power. The dark-skinned, working class Creoles in the NPS and the
Hindustanis in the Verenigde Hindostaanse Partij (VHP, United Hindustani
Party) built a coalition that won the 1958 elections and would rule until 1967
(Sedney, 1997: 31-38).
The multi-ethnic NPS-VHP collaboration – also referred to as
verbroederingspolitiek or ‘politics of fraternisation’ – was in many ways the model
for Surinamese politics after 1967. With the exception of the 1980-1987
interval of military rule, multi-party and multi-ethnic coalitions have continued
to rule Suriname. Since the return to democracy in 1987, several pre-election
coalitions have dominated the political landscape, with the Front voor Democratie
en Ontwikkeling (Front for Democracy and Development) as the dominant
force until 1996 and after 2000. The Front’s backbone has consisted of the old
political parties NPS and VHP. Until 1996, also the Javanese KTPI (Kaum Tani
Persatuan Indonesia) was part of the Front, but it was replaced by the Javanese
Pendawa Lima as a result of political controversies after the Front’s defeat in the
1996 elections. The Surinamese Labour Party (SPA, founded in 1987), which is
linked to one of the country’s main labour unions, has also been part of the
Front. For reasons of political expediency – in particular, to guarantee a
majority in the election of the President
4
– several other parties joined the
Front, renamed the New Front, for the 2005 elections.
One of the most persistent elements of the Surinamese political system
has been the attempt by political forces to exercise power in order to serve the
11
interests of a particular ethnic group rather than to achieve ideologically
defined objectives (interview Schalkwijk, 2 April 2004). Class relations have
been of marginal importance only in post-World War II Surinamese politics.
As Menke (1991: 63) has put it, ‘the state was an instrument of class formation
through political patronage by giving facilities and resources (e.g. land) to
members of the own political party or ethnic group’.
Patrimonial features of Surinamese politics and the state find expression,
inter alia, in the attempt of political parties to assure their hold of particular
ministries. To an important degree, government employment has served as an
instrument of clientelism, where support for political parties was built on their
ability to create jobs (referred to as regelen, ‘arrange’) in the ministries (Sedney,
1997: 27-28; Menke, 1991: 63; Derveld, 1999: 5, 15). The continuing
dominance of Suriname’s public sector employment in the total labour force
(see above) is a important sign of the persistence of the ‘pervasiveness of
patron-client networks’ (Inter-American Development Bank, 2001: 40) in the
country’s political system.
The creation of state-owned enterprises (or ‘parastatals’) has been an
equally important tool of patronage, witness the formation of 76 such
enterprises in the 1948-1987 period, more than 60 per cent of which were in
the tertiary sector (Menke, 1991: 60). Despite the numerical importance of
state-owned enterprises in the Surinamese economy, the assessment of their
performance by the Inter-American Development Bank (2001: 76) has been
very negative: ‘They have generally been inefficient and have produced inferior
quality goods and services. … As a result, subsidies to state enterprises have
represented a considerable drain on the treasury’.
The defeat of the Front parties in the 1996 parliamentary elections and the
subsequent election of Jules Wijdenbosch to the Presidency marked the
beginning of a new era, during which some of the perennial features of
Surinamese politics were intensified. Wijdenbosch was the representative of
the Nationale Democratische Partij (National Democratic Party, NDP), the
political party that was founded by the former military leaders. The NDP was
built on a class of nouveaux riches, that had benefited from corruption, drugs
trafficking, gold mining and other illegal activities in the military period
(Buddingh’, 2000: 364). The 1996-2000 period is widely regarded as a time of
intensifying corruption in politics and society and of a fast growing informal
sector. The appointment of political allies to ‘strategic positions’ in the public
sector and in state-owned enterprises, as well as economic favouritism of
companies that supported the NDP government and the misuse of public
funds became the order of the day (Buddingh’, 2000: 372-380; Derveld, 1999:
15). The government’s economic policies, characterised by massive monetary
financing of public spending, resulted in a rapid depreciation of the Surinamese
guilder and plunged Suriname into crisis (Buddingh’, 2000: 402-408).
According to Buddingh’ (2000: 375), the Wijdenbosch regime showed much
resemblance to the ‘military-civilian oligarchy’ of Suharto’s Indonesia.
The conclusion is thus that Suriname’s society and economy has been
dominated by the state apparatus, which is a prime instrument of patronage
and clientelism. This has resulted in the amassing and redistribution of rents
derived from the country’s rich natural resources and substantial inflows of aid.
12
The country may thus be considered a prime example of a non-developmental
or rentier state.
4
S
TAATSOLIE
AS A ‘POCKET OF EFFICIENCY’
Staatsolie has developed, in the context of post-independence Suriname, into a
‘pocket of efficiency’, the performance of which stands in sharp contrast to
other state-owned enterprises. Staatsolie has gradually come to occupy an
important economic role in Suriname and is generally acknowledged as a well-
managed and meritocratic organisation. Before moving to an interpretation of
Staatsolie’s role as a development agent (in section 5), this section will provide
some data on the company’s main achievements.
Staatsolie was founded on 13 December 1980 on the advice of the Oil
Commission of Suriname. Its original assignment was to enter into a
production-sharing service contract
5
with Gulf Oil for the exploration of
petroleum in the Tambaredjo field in the central coastal area of Suriname,
where oil reserves had been anticipated ever since the 1920s. The Head of the
Surinamese Mining Office, Eddy Jharap, was appointed as the first director of
the State Oil Company of Suriname by the military authorities that had taken
over the government in a coup d’état in February 1980 (Jharap, 1998: 15-17;
Staatsolie, 2002: 6).
The production of oil in Suriname started officially at independence day
(25 November) in 1982 in the Catharina Sophia area in Tambaredjo. Since
1982, Staatsolie has ascertained petroleum reserves of 150 million barrels in the
oil fields of Tambaredjo and Calcutta (the latter discovered in 2003) and
produced approximately 55 million barrels of crude oil until the end of 2004.
Yearly production hovered around 4.25 million barrels in 2003 and 2004 (State
Oil Company of Suriname, 2004: 11; Jharap, 2004, table 2.4).
Apart from petroleum exploitation, Staatsolie has gradually moved into
refining operations. After the completion of a pipeline between the Catharina
Sophia area and Tout Lui Faut on the Suriname River in 1992, a refinery was
built, financed with a loan from ABN Amro Bank and ABB-EFAG (De West, 1
March 1994). As of the end of 2003, annual refining capacity was increased to
2.6 million barrels (State Oil Company of Suriname, 2004: 19). In addition to
this, a pipeline was built in 2000 to cover all energy needs of the Suralco
alumina plant in Paranam. Since 2004, Staatsolie has been working on the
establishment of an electricity division, after an initial agreement with the
Suriname Energy Company, EBS (Times of Suriname, 19 March 2004). In April
2006, the Staatsolie Power Company will become operational; its 15 megawatt
generators, financed with a $16 million loan from foreign banks, will produce
energy for EBS (De Ware Tijd, 23 January 2006).
Over the years, Staatsolie has diversified its products. In 2001, it was
reported that Staatsolie’s production of crude oil was sufficient to cover the
energy needs of Suriname, expressed in barrels. Since the company was not yet
able to produce all required end-products (such as diesel oil, petrol and
kerosene), Suriname still had to import part of its energy sources (Staatsolie
Nieuws, March 2001). Over time, Staatsolie has developed in an important
supplier of fuel oil to the region, among others to Barbados, which relies to an
13
important extent on Surinamese oil for its power generation (State Oil
Company of Suriname, 2004: 20). Staatsolie’s strategic plan for 2005-2010
includes the diversification of the refinery product portfolio by installing a
hydrocracker and a hydrogen and sulphur plant to produce premium diesel and
LPG (State Oil Company of Suriname, 2005: 2)
The expectation that the continental shelf off the Suriname coast contains
significant petroleum reserves has resulted in several attempts – most recently,
the ‘Suriname 2003-2004 International Bidding Round’, held between
November 2003 and May 2004 (State Oil Company of Suriname, 2004: 16) –
to interest foreign companies to undertake exploration activities. In 2004 and
2005, Staatsolie signed production-sharing agreements aimed at offshore oil
exploration with Spanish-Argentinean Repsol-YPF, Danish Maersk Oil and
U.S. Occidental Petroleum Corporation (interview Brunings, 5 April 2004;
Staatsolie Nieuws, December 2004; De Ware Tijd, 26 October 2005).
The macro-economic importance of Staatsolie’s activities for Suriname in
the last decade (1994-2004) can be illustrated with the data presented in figure
1 and table 1.
FIGURE 1
Staatsolie’s financial results, 1994–2004
Sources: State Oil Company of Suriname, Annual Reports 1993-2003; World Bank, World Development
Indicators 2003 CD-ROM.
Figure 1 shows that Staatsolie’s revenues from oil sales increased almost
fivefold in the 1994-2004 period. Over this period, profits rose to $38.4 million
in 2004 and the average investment, despite fluctuations, increased to an
average of over $30 million in the four most recent years. Stockholder’s equity
-20
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Millions of US dollars
Oil revenues
Net income (profit)
Investment
Stockholders' equity
14
– representing the ‘value’ of Staatsolie to Suriname’s government and the
Surinamese Planning Agency – has steadily increased to peak at nearly $140
million in 2004.
Further, table 1 presents data related to two indicators that shed light on
Staatsolie’s contribution to the Surinamese economy.
TABLE 1
Staatsolie’s contribution to the Surinamese economy, 1994–2002
Year
Oil revenues as
percentage of Surinamese
GDP
Stockholder’s equity as
percentage of Surinamese
GDP
1994 9.6 17.5
1995 11.9 15.5
1996 7.5 8.8
1997 7.0 7.9
1998 4.2 5.6
1999 7.9 7.6
2000 11.6 9.4
2001 12.6 12.4
2002 10.9 11.0
Sources: State Oil Company of Suriname, Annual Reports 1993-2003; World Bank,
World Development Indicators 2003 CD-ROM.
Figures in the second column indicate, for the nine-year period for which
data are available, that oil revenues have constituted an important source of
Suriname’s gross domestic product. With the exception of the last four years of
the twentieth century, the oil sector has contributed roughly 10 per cent to the
country’s GDP. Stockholder’s equity has represented never less than 5.6 per
cent of GDP (in 1998) and has been as high as 17.5 per cent (in 1994). Data on
corporate and income taxes and dividend paid by Staatsolie to the state show
that the company’s payments represented a significant, and increasing, share of
total government consumption expenditure.
6
Over the years for which data are
available the percentage increased from 8.2 (1999) to 14.8 (2000) and 17.8
(2001). In 2004, Staatsolie was one of the few Surinamese firms that brought
foreign exchange into the country (interview Tuur, 1 April 2004).
TABLE 2
Staatsolie’s return on assets, 2000–2004
Year Ratio of Return on Assets
2000 19.1
2001 13.6
2002 12.6
2003 13.2
2004 15.9
Source: State Oil Company of Suriname, Treasury
15
Staatsolie’s performance can be illustrated also on the basis of a commonly
used financial indicator. In table 2, data are given on the company’s return on
assets (the ratio of a company’s net income and its total assets) from 2000 to
2004.
The figures presented in table 2 indicate that Staatsolie has achieved a
noteworthy level of efficiency in its use of resources. Despite some fluctuation
over time, due to variations in the price of crude oil, Staatsolie has been able to
secure a rate of return on assets of over 12.5 per cent over the last five years,
which compares favourably with the performance of other oil companies.
7
The data presented in this section have demonstrated that Staatsolie, in the
nearly 25 years of its existence, has become a true ‘pocket of efficiency’ in
patrimonial Suriname. Figures show that the activities of Staatsolie have
expanded considerably, leading to a notable diversification of the company’s
activities. Moreover, the company has been contributing significantly to the
overall economic wealth of the country. In short, Staatsolie has become a
genuine development agent. The next section will attempt to contribute
towards the explanation of the company’s role.
5 ‘BUILDING ON OUR OWN ABILITIES’:
S
TAATSOLIE
’
S
DOUBLE STRATEGY
State-owned enterprises are a common phenomenon across the developing
world, where they have often been set up to ‘rapidly lift the entire economy to
a level of self-sustaining industrial growth’ (Waterbury, cited in Evans, 1995:
79). Typical explanations of the generally weak performance of state-owned
enterprises in non-developmental or rentier states tend to focus on the fact that
such enterprises have little autonomy from the state, and thus are easy
instruments to pursue political objectives. The emphasis of such explanations
is often on the rent-seeking attitude of the management, who have themselves
been appointed for political reasons, and on the overly political nature of the
enterprises’ activities (cf. Schneider, 1999).
This section serves to analyse which were the conditions to develop and
maintain Staatsolie’s role as a development agent. The discussion focuses, in
particular, on the double strategy that was developed by Staatsolie to become a
successful medium-size oil company. The internal part of this strategy, derived
from the management vision and ideological commitment of the company’s
leadership, was aimed at developing technological and management skills. The
external part of the strategy was aimed at steering away from political
influences on the company and playing out politically the formal-legal position
of the firm in Suriname’s petroleum sector.
It was noted above that Staatsolie was founded at the beginning of the
period of military rule in Suriname. In the immediate aftermath of the coup
d’état, the military’s role in Surinamese politics was generally regarded as
legitimate, as its intervention reflected a general discontent with the ‘old order’
based on pernicious practices of patronage and clientelism on the basis of
ethnicity (interview Menke, 2 April 2004).
16
Staatsolie’s start in the military era was important, because the military
rulers originally embraced a nationalist economic agenda and saw the possible
expansion of the oil sector as a step towards self-reliant development. Oil was
being regarded as a strategic mineral resource, the exploration and production
of which would best be done under control of the state. In order to enhance
the effectiveness of the state’s presence in the oil sector, the state would need
to have a specialised instrument, in the form of a state oil company (De Ware
Tijd, Kompas, 9 December 2000; interviews Sedney, 1 April 2004, and Jharap,
5 April 2004; Jharap, 2006: 6).
The economic agenda of the military was in line with the ideas
propounded by the Surinamese Volkspartij (People’s Party), a Marxist party that
tried to bring about massive social and political change in Suriname and
supported ideas about self-reliance (interview Jharap, 5 April 2004; Lotens,
2004: 73-75). During the 1970s, Eddy Jharap had been a very active member of
the Volkspartij, which was dismantled, as were all existing political parties, after
the military coup.
8
Jharap’s background in the Volkspartij seems to have played
a role in his appointment to the chair of the Oil Commission and, later, to the
directorship of Staatsolie. According to Jharap (2006: 6), then Minister for
Reconstruction, Herman Adhin, selected him with a view to his left-wing
orientation, as this would be a ‘useful counterweight’ to foreign oil companies
during negotiations.
The creation of Staatsolie, made necessary because there was a need for a
legal entity to enter a production-sharing service contract with Gulf Oil, was in
line with the political commitment of Jharap, who left the Volkspartij after the
coup. In his role as managing director of Staatsolie, Jharap saw himself as expert
and ideologue. Looking back, he argued that the challenges for the oil company
were to use Suriname’s wealth for the benefit of the country’s population and
to undertake resource exploration and exploitation with the company’s own,
not foreign-dominated, means (Lotens, 2004: 77).
The slogans ‘Confidence in our own Abilities’ and ‘Building on our own
Abilities’ – the latter adopted in 2001 to reflect the company’s offensive nature
in a more prominent way – are the expression of Staatsolie management’s vision
that the creation and further development of Suriname’s oil sector are
important not only to contribute to the country’s level of wealth, but also to
signal the endogenous capacity of the Surinamese to build a modern enterprise
(Jharap, 1998: 19). On the basis of his analysis of the operations of major oil
companies, Jharap came to see the challenges of the oil industry less in terms
of technical than management skills. Based on the Norwegian experience,
Jharap argued that the Surinamese state oil company should operate firstly as a
commercial firm aiming at the development of expertise that is required to
manage the inputs of consultants, subcontractors and in-house experts. Apart
from this, the company would need to develop the infrastructure that would
enable it to do business with foreign oil firms as an equal partner (Jharap, 2006:
8).
During the first few years of its existence, Staatsolie acquired its
technological and managerial know-how by working closely with foreign
consultants, most notably in Gulf Oil’s division Geoman. According to Jharap,
the establishment of master-apprentice relationships was very important in this
17
respect, as the main problem of the transfer of technology and management
skills appeared to lie in the absorptive capacity at the receiving end. In Jharap’s
view, a master would, in general, be willing to transfer knowledge and
expertise, provided that the apprentice would display an appropriate attitude.
In the relationship between the master and apprentice, a certain degree of
submission would be required, as the master would only then stop seeing the
apprentice as a possible threat, but rather as somebody who can be trusted
with the knowledge and expertise (interview Jharap, 5 April 2004).
In addition to the acquisition of technological and managerial expertise by
Staatsolie staff, the spreading of know-how about aspects of the oil industry
throughout the Surinamese economy was considered to be important. The
construction of the first oil plant in Catharina Sophia, in 1982, was undertaken
with local contractors and constructors. Staatsolie’s first oil drill was purchased
second-hand in Canada and overhauled by local staff. Drilling staff was trained
by Geoman consultants (Jharap, 1998: 37).
In later years, Staatsolie has placed much emphasis on the need to maintain
well-defined standards for its operations. In contrast to prevalent practices of
patronage and clientelism, the company adopted meritocratic principles in its
human resource policy. Background and ethnicity are considered irrelevant as
criteria for appointment and promotion within Staatsolie. In order to upgrade
the quality of its staff, Staatsolie has instituted a sizeable training programme,
the budget of which is currently in the order of $0.5–1 million annually, as well
as a management development programme. Much attention is paid to enhance
the attractiveness of Staatsolie to well-qualified applicants; secondary labour
conditions (among others, a holiday allowance, a profit-sharing scheme, a
company car for senior staff and health care and pension facilities) serve to
make the company competitive vis-à-vis the foreign-dominated bauxite sector
(interview Essed, 6 April 2004).
In terms of standards, Staatsolie has been very active in implementing
quality control mechanisms for its operations. In 2001, the Marketing and Sales
Division and the Staatsolie laboratory received ISO certification status (Staatsolie
Nieuws, March 2001), and in March 2004, the refinery operations at Tout Lui
Faut became ISO9001:2000 certified (Staatsolie Nieuws, March 2004). Internally,
Staatsolie has instituted a safety award and certificate for divisions and staff
members that contribute to enhancing company safety and completing
operations without accident (Staatsolie Nieuws, March 2004).
Staatsolie’s history demonstrates that the company’s management has
consistently kept an eye on developments in the Surinamese political system. A
lack of trust in Suriname’s political leaders – and particularly the fear that
Staatsolie could become an instrument of patronage, should the company
become too dependent on political decision-making – resulted the desire of the
company’s leadership to keep politics at a distance. The inclination on the part
of Jharap, later shared by other Staatsolie staff, was related to his political
engagement with the Volkspartij and its ideology. The Volkspartij rejected
traditional Surinamese political practices and profiled itself as a national party,
unaffected by ethnic biases. In order to build a successful company that would
contribute to the wealth and capacities of the Surinamese people, Jharap felt he
should not depend on political favours.
18
During Staatsolie’s early years, Jharap tried to distance himself and the
company – literally as well as figuratively – from the military regime. Jharap
purposefully made Staatsolie into an ‘island’ during its early years. Its operations,
located away from capital, Paramaribo, were out of sight for most people.
Jharap argued that a great part of the political elite at the time preferred to let
him be occupied with Staatsolie’s operations, so that he would not interfere with
them and their political activities (Lotens, 2004: 78). Attempts by military from
the lower ranks to use Staatsolie as a source of jobs for relatives and friends
were averted by pointing out that such requests would be discussed with the
military leadership. As the latter’s credo, according to Jharap (2006: 21-22), was
that Staatsolie should be autonomous, no interventions of the military took
place in the company’s employment policies. Occasional pressures on the
company from within the military government – such as Deputy Prime
Minister Haakmat’s attempt to intervene in the agreement between Suriname
and Gulf Oil in late 1980, based on his assessment that the benefits for the
country were too meagre – were also warded off after intervention by the
military’s leadership (Jharap, 2006: 21).
Jharap’s resolve to stay clear of politics was also reflected in his search for
capital. Except for a relatively small advance that was received from the
Ministry of Finance, most of the risk capital needed in Staatsolie’s early days was
received from Gulf Oil (Jharap, 1998: 25). Other amounts, required for the
financing of exploration activities and the purchase of oil production facilities
respectively, were obtained from the Surinaamsche Bank, with a bank
guarantee from the Central Bank of Suriname (interview Sedney, 1 April 2004),
and from a consortium of six banks in Suriname (Jharap, 1998: 33).
Jharap preferred not to draw on the aid funds provided by The
Netherlands, partly because of the bureaucratic procedures involved and partly
because of his desire to maintain a business-like, non-political relationship with
Staatsolie’s financiers (Jharap, 1998: 35; interview Sedney, 1 April 2004). The
only exception to the rule was the guarantee from Dutch Treaty funds sought
(and received) by Staatsolie as collateral for its major investments in the refinery,
which itself were financed with private bank credit (De Ware Tijd, 19 March
1993).
After 1985, the main sources of finance were a revolving credit and long-
term loans obtained from international banks, with ABN Amro taking in an
important position among these (interview Kortram, 6 April 2004). The
revolving credit arrangement with ABN Amro was only partly a financial deal.
The country’s financial situation had deteriorated in the final years of the
military period – primarily because Dutch development assistance had been cut
off in response to the military-led ‘8 December killings’ of 15 opponents – and
all exporting firms in Suriname were forced to deposit their hard currency in
the Central Bank in exchange for steadily depreciating Surinamese guilders.
One of the conditions of Staatsolie’s revolving credit was that its earnings on
exports, which ultimately served as collateral, had to be deposited at ABN
Amro in Houston. Thus, Staatsolie managed to retain control over its foreign
earnings, which it needed for reinvestment purposes, and could influence the
amount of foreign currency that was handed over to the Central Bank of
Suriname (Jharap, 2006: 18).
19
Staatsolie’s legal position as ‘agent of the state’ has been played out
consistently by Jharap and his colleagues as a powerful tool to pursue the
objectives of building an independent oil company and upgrading the
technological and management expertise present in Suriname. Staatsolie’s
position was defined as a result of the Oil Commission’s desire to enter into an
agreement with Gulf Oil, the basis for which was laid in a legal arrangement
(the so-called Decree E-8B of 1981) that granted Staatsolie the concession on
oil exploration and exploitation in Surinamese soil as well as the exclusive right
to negotiate with foreign investors (Staatsolie Nieuws, June 1998).
In addition to the original arrangement regarding Suriname’s oil reserves,
the Petroleum Law 1990 specified certain conditions regarding the exploration
and exploitation of hydrocarbons. In particular, the new law ruled that the
state’s share of oil revenues (the ‘take’) should be maximised, and that
operations should lead to technology transfer and the training of Surinamese
employees (Staatsolie Nieuws, June 1998). Notwithstanding occasional
complaints by politicians that the company has not been contributing
sufficiently to the government budget, Staatsolie’s willingness to transfer all
profits, apart from a share needed for investment, to the state, has produced
great confidence among many politicians in the reliability of management.
Staatsolie’s attempt to stay clear of political interference was successful,
ultimately, because of the company’s ability to act as a role model. This is
probably nowhere clearer than in the absence of patronage and ethnically-
based appointments within the company (interview Menke, 2 April 2004). By
insisting on its quality standards and drawing on its successes, Staatsolie has
defended its a-political position. Although the company has been active in the
typically Creole-dominated industrial sector, Staatsolie has proved able to
withstand possible pressures from the Ministry of Natural Resources
(interviews Jharap, 5 April 2004, and Sedney, 1 April 2004).
The company’s standing as a role model and an example for other firms
was demonstrated most clearly during Staatsolie’s confrontation with the
Wijdenbosch government in 1997 and 1998, when leading politicians
attempted to appropriate Staatsolie’s resources for political means. At the time,
the government made various attempts to extract more money from the
company to finance its increasing deficits. Among other things, the
government tried to force Staatsolie to increase its oil production from 9,500 to
20,000 barrels per day, sell off the Tambaredjo oil field and initiate a joint
venture between Staatsolie and foreign oil companies (De Ware Tijd, 6 June
1997, 12 September 1997 and 18 March 1998). The ensuing dismissal of the
Board of Supervisory Commissioners in March 1998 (De West, 26 and 28
March 1998) and the double attempt to dismiss Jharap should be seen as
efforts to bring Staatsolie under direct government control. Staatsolie’s
management mobilised legal advisors who emphasised that the role of the state
was limited to the appointment and dismissal of the Board of Supervisory
Commissioners. Jharap successfully challenged
the decision of the General Meeting of Shareholders (composed of
representatives of the government and the Surinamese Planning Agency) to
fire members of the Board of Executive Officers on the basis of non-
20
compliance with government policy (De West, 17 June 1998 and 23 September
1998).
Jharap’s successful recourse to the available legal means and the massive
protests, first of the Staatsolie trade union (the Staatsolie Werknemers Organisatie
Suriname) and later of the joint political opposition and labour unions, warded
off the government’s bid for power in the oil sector. An important factor
spurring the popular resistance against the government on the issue of Staatsolie
was the widespread feeling that the oil company, as one of the most successful
firms in the country, should be protected against political machinations. The
resistance became particularly fierce because of the involvement of politicians,
such as NDP President Wijdenbosch and Central Bank President Goedschalk,
who were suspected of placing their personal interest in the sale of oil rights
above the national interest, and whose financial-economic policies were felt to
lead the country to disaster (De Ware Tijd, 4 June 1998; interview Read, 6 April
2004).
The 1997-1998 protest movement fed into broader popular protest against
the Wijdenbosch government, which ultimately led to earlier elections. Since
the events of 1997-1998 and the return to power of the Front government in
2000, Staatsolie’s position beyond the reach of politicians seems to have been
secured. The smooth transition of the company’s leadership to the long-
serving Director of Refining and Marketing, Marc Waaldijk, after Jharap’s
retirement in December 2005 underlines Staatsolie’s current autonomy from
politics.
6 CONCLUSION
The literature about patrimonialism and rentier states has focused traditionally
on macro-level institutions (primarily, the state) and on the influence that rent-
seeking, patronage and clientelism exert in society and the economy. The
theoretical argument that this paper has made is that it is necessary to look
beyond such macro-level institutions, and include actors at the meso and micro
level, to ‘unpack’ the argument about the patrimonial or rentier state. Only if
attention is focused on meso- and micro-level actors, is it possible to gauge the
political and social dynamics in particular sectors of the economy. The study of
sectoral dynamics may help analysts to avoid all too crude generalisations about
the impact of patrimonialism, in particular, in the form of rent-seeking,
patronage and clientelism.
More specifically, the current analysis has demonstrated how and under
which conditions concrete development activities can take place in a seemingly
hostile environment. This paper has focused on a typical ‘hard case’ – the oil
sector in a country that has traditionally been characterised by patronage and
clientelist politics – where the patrimonial/rentier state argument would predict
rent-seeking to prevail. The case of the Surinamese State Oil Company
indicates that sectoral development under committed leadership is possible
against all odds.
The analysis of Staatsolie contributes to the argument about so-called
‘pockets of efficiency’ brought forward by Evans (1989), among others. The
current analysis shows that the creation of a pocket of efficiency within the
21
public sector need not signal an overall improvement in the functioning of the
state bureaucracy. Indeed, the Surinamese case supports Evans’ (1989: 578)
observation that a successful state-owned enterprise can coexist alongside
inefficient parastatals and a government bureaucracy infested with practices of
patronage and clientelism. At the same time, however, the case of Staatsolie also
illustrates how the dynamics within a pocket of efficiency – in particular, the
need to consolidate the market position and diversify production – lead to
changing preferences about the relations with the state. Current discussions
about the (partial) privatisation of Staatsolie, which are likely to lead to a
proposal from the Board of Directors to sell 20 per cent of the company’s
shares to private investors on the local capital market, may lead to a legal volte-
face in the relationship between Staatsolie and the Surinamese government
(interview Gemerts, 7 April 2004; De Ware Tijd, 13 December 2005).
The theoretical significance of Staatsolie’s case is that it brings out clearly
how a company could be set up that is committed to the acquisition and
further development of technological and managerial expertise, despite its
insertion into a patrimonial environment. The discussion of the conditions for
Staatsolie’s role as a development agent (section 5) attributed the company’s
success to its double strategy, built on the management vision and ideological
commitment of the company’s leadership, and the ability on the part of
management to steer away from political influences and to play out politically
the formal-legal position of the firm in the petroleum sector. It is important to
realise that these were, at most, necessary, and clearly not sufficient conditions
for Staatsolie’s success. In particular, the fact that the company started as a
marginal enterprise in 1980 and remained in the shadow of major rent-
producing activities – such as, in particular, the bauxite sector and Dutch
development assistance – until the mid-1990s produced the conditions under
which Staatsolie’s skills could be developed without much interference from
those who, as shareholders, could have pulled the strings.
Despite the fact that most people in Suriname now seem to respect
Staatsolie and its leadership for what has been achieved over the past 25 years, it
has to be realised that the immediate external environment for the oil company
is not without threats. The major challenges for the company and for its desire
to maintain its role as a development agent in the years ahead seem to be
related to the same factors that contributed to Staatsolie’s achievements. Since
the smooth succession of Jharap by someone with a comparable vision and
commitment, Staatsolie’s resolve to continue building on its own abilities seems
to be guaranteed. The most important threat to the future success of the oil
company is, therefore, to be found in the interaction between Staatsolie and the
Surinamese government and, particularly in the willingness of the shareholders
to grant Staatsolie a substantial degree of autonomy. Such autonomy will be
required in the light of major decisions on off-shore exploration and
exploitation and the further diversification of its activities, for all of which the
company will undoubtedly need to attract private, possibly foreign, capital.
Fundamentally, the discussion about Staatsolie’s future touches upon the
nature of Suriname’s politics and, broader, its governance structure. As
demonstrated by, among others, the Inter-American Development Bank (2001:
4-5), the creation of wealth and other public goods in Suriname is seriously
22
hampered by the pervasive nature of patronage and clientelism, which support
rent-seeking rather than productive initiatives. The flowering of initiatives such
as Staatsolie, aimed at the acquisition of technology and management expertise,
is heavily dependent on the capacity of the political leadership to curtail
patrimonial practices. In this perspective, a major step forward in the
securement of Staatsolie’s legacy would lie in the establishment of more reliable
governance structures and the ensuing institutionalisation of mechanisms of
self-restraint among those working in the Surinamese public sector.
NOTES
1. See Appendix A.
2. Suriname does not have all characteristics of a ‘petro-state’ as described by Karl.
Although its reserves per capita (roughly 0.3 billion barrels per million persons) and
the share of oil production in GDP (over 11 per cent between 2000 and 2002) would
place the country in Karl’s category of capital-deficient oil producers, the share of oil
in total exports (approximately 2 per cent in 2003) falls far short of the 40 per cent
threshold used by the World Bank (Karl 1997: 17). In addition to this, Suriname’s oil
reserves and the country’s share of world oil production render the country
insignificant by international standards.
3. In 1998, the population of Suriname counted roughly 431,000 people, and consisted
of 27 per cent Creoles, 40 per cent Hindustanis, 16 per cent Javanese, 12 per cent
Maroons (former slaves who escaped to the interior of Suriname), 3 per cent
Amerindian and 2 per cent others (St-Hilaire, 2001: 1002).
4. Suriname’s Constitution specifies that the election of the President and Vice-
President requires a qualified majority in Parliament. If such a majority cannot be
obtained in two rounds of voting, the so-called People’s Assembly (Verenigde
Volksvergadering), composed of all Parliamentarians plus all elected representatives at
the regional and municipal level, meets to elect the President and Vice-President by
simple majority. In both 1996 and 2005, there was no sufficient majority in
Parliament, and in these cases the People’s Assembly met to select the President and
Vice-President.
5. A production-sharing service contract is a contract between a state and a foreign oil
company, under which the state retains the property rights of all oil that is produced
as well as the jurisdiction over the exploitation. Payment of the foreign company for
an agreed set of activities (such as a minimum level of exploration and production)
takes place through the granting by the state of a fixed share of the annual oil
production to the company (Jharap, 1998: 15).
6. Data on Staatsolie’s payments to the government were provided by the Staatsolie
Treasury; data on general government final consumption expenditure were taken from
World Bank (2003). Overall, it has appeared to be difficult to gather reliable data on
the Suriname economy. As documented by a former President of the Surinamese
Audit Office, there is systematic underreporting of data related to government
spending (Prade, 1999).
7. Differences in the size and nature of operations of oil companies as well as in the
financial data provided by these companies make comparisons difficult. A comparison
of the financial results reported by Staatsolie and by Repsol YPF, which has important
activities in Latin America, shows that the latter’s average rate of return on assets (6.6
per cent in the 2000-2004 period) was significantly lower than the former’s (see
http://www.repsolypf.com/eng/todosobrerepsolypf/
23
AccionistaseInversores/principalesmagnitudes/principalesmagnitudes.asp?Nivel=10,
retrieved 30 August 2005).
8. The Volkspartij split over the issue of cooperation with the military. A fraction of
the party allied with the military regime under the name Revolutionaire Volkspartij
(Revolutionary People’s Party).
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APPENDIX A: INTERVIEWS
Leon Brunings: Treasurer, State Oil Company Suriname (5 April 2004)
Vincent Essed: Manager Human Resources, State Oil Company Suriname (6 April
2004)
Glenn Gemerts: Deputy-Director for Mining, Ministry of Natural Resources (7 April
2004)
Dr. Eddy Jharap: Managing Director, State Oil Company Suriname (5 April 2004)
Niermala Hindori-Badrising: Advisor in the Cabinet of the President of Suriname (31
March 2004)
Iwan Kortram: Financial Director, State Oil Company Suriname (6 April 2004)
Dr. Jack Menke: researcher, affiliated with the Anton de Kom University of Suriname
(2 April 2004)
Lloyd Read: Chairman, State Oil Company Employees’ Organisation Suriname
(SWOS) (6 April 2004)
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Dr. Marten Schalkwijk: Director, Nikos – NGO Institute for Training and Research (2
April 2004)
Dr. Jules Sedney: Advisor to the Minister of Trade and Industry and former Prime-
Minister of Suriname (1 April 2004)
Mauro R.L. Tuur: Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (1 April
2004)
