CABINDA TOWN, Angola -- More than 30 years after striking oil, Angola's fabulously productive Cabinda enclave has yet to join the rich man's club.
In this tiny corner of Africa, there are no fashionable shopping malls, no new highways, no gleaming sports cars, no showpiece hotels, science parks or universities, and no Cabindan oil barons building petrodollar investment empires around the world.
While spared the civil war devastating other parts of Angola, the province remains a dusty center of underdevelopment despite pumping almost 500,000 barrels - currently worth about $9.5 million - every day, almost half of which goes to the state.
"I see the local population just getting poorer," said Angolan management consultant Emilio Moreso Grion.
Home to one of Africa's lesser known independence struggles, Cabinda is plagued by political tensions with some areas paralyzed by separatist guerrillas demanding a greater cut of oil revenues for the 250,000-strong population.
The situation poses a diplomatic test for oil multinationals such as Chevron, the U.S. firm that runs the oil fields.
So far there has been none of the mass community unrest that has shaken the larger Niger delta oil province in Nigeria, largely because Cabinda's oil fields are safely located offshore.
Yet while there are no reports in Cabinda of the starvation occurring elsewhere in Angola, tuberculosis, diarrhea, malaria and other ailments aggravated by malnutrition are common.
The main separatist group FLEC, or Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda-Renovada, says it is not opposed to the foreign oil companies but wants Cabinda to control 30 percent of the province's production.
Since 1996 the provincial government has received 10 percent of the taxes paid by Chevron and its partners, Elf Aquitaine of France, AGIP of Italy and Angola's state Sonangol .
In the past two years, the oil firms have doubled their annual spending on social responsibility to $5 million, not counting salaries, business development projects and travel costs for Cabindans and Angolans training abroad.
But Cabindans complain oil companies should buy more from local agriculture, timber and fisheries firms instead of importing services duty-free and writing off many other in-country costs as exploration or development expenses.
"Compare what oil companies import to what they buy in the local economy. It's a very tiny amount," said Grion. "Almost the only thing oil companies get locally is labor, most of which is unskilled.
"The final cost is borne by Angola."
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