The European Parliament said it was “extremely concerned about human rights violations” committed in the context of the construction of the oil pipeline with a length of more than 1,400 km, according to Le Monde, which is quoted by Rador.

Uganda’s energy minister on Tuesday, October 4, called the European Parliament’s resolution against a mega-project for oil production planned jointly with the French group TotalEnergies “inappropriate”, a European institution that speaks of “violations of human rights” of the opponent.

In February, TotalEnergies announced a US$10 billion investment deal with Uganda, Tanzania and Chinese oil giant Cnooc for the oil megaproject, which includes the construction of more than 1,400 km of pipeline connecting the Lake Albert fields in western Uganda to the Tanzanian coast.

In a non-binding resolution, the European Parliament said it was “deeply concerned about human rights violations” in the two countries, citing “arrests, acts of intimidation and prosecutions against human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations”.

The European Parliament’s intervention is “inappropriate”, Ruth Nankabirwa, Uganda’s energy minister, told AFP on the sidelines of the African Green Energy Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, saying authorities in Kampala had been “caught off guard”.

“We are all partners in the fight against climate change. If we do not see ourselves as partners, we will not win this war,” Ms. Nankabirwa added. Africa is the continent that emits the least amount of greenhouse gases, only 3% of global emissions.

On September 16, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the project “will continue as per the contract we have with TotalEnergies and Cnooc”.

The equivalent of 6.5 billion barrels of crude oil, of which approximately 1.4 billion are currently recoverable, lies beneath the water and on the shores of Lake Albert, a 160-kilometer natural barrier that separates Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Uganda’s reserves may last twenty-five to thirty years, and peak production is estimated at 230,000 barrels per day.

President Museveni, who has ruled Uganda with an iron fist since 1986, has praised the project in the past, citing in particular the economic benefits for the landlocked country, where the majority of the population lives below the poverty line.