The General Royalty System (SGR) and the National Planning Department (DNP) have issued a string of nearly daily announcements in June detailing advancements and approval of projects that will receive funding using the royalty system.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos visited the city of Villavicencio in the Meta Department and called for a balance between oil production and the environmental and social needs of the community.
The USO in a statement says it categorically rejects the model of new contracts that Ecopetrol’s administration is proposing. The union calls it an attack against the workers, as it will allow contractor firms to lower headcount, decrease salaries and hierarchical ranks of works, increase the work load through “multifunctional” workers. This will expose workers to a higher risk of accidents, breaking the internal policy of Ecopetrol called “Work Safely, Clean Barrels”.
Protests and blockades in Paz de Ariporo, one of several hotspots this week that have grabbed headlines, are now being lifted after community leaders and Bicentennial Pipeline officials signed an agreement that would improve the community’s roads.
Separate blockades targeting oil operations have been set up by protestors from rural communities around Paz de Ariporo and near the Monterrey municipality as demonstrators call for greater social investment and allege unfulfilled promises from oil firms in the region.
Over the last week the USO said that it would ramp up legal action against what it says are abuses occurring in the mining, hydroelectrical and oil sectors of Colombia. A public meeting in mid-July in Meta will serve as the lead off.
Protests which started in the city of Tibú, in the Norte de Santander department have turned increasing violent as local mayors are calling on the national government for help. According to reports in the local press, a fundamental cause of the protests is the eradication of coca crops without an alternative crop or subsidies to compensate affected families.
The Bicentennial Pipeline unveiled a community center for events and meetings in a village of Nunchia which it says will benefit more than 350 people in the community and is one of seven the company is delivering for community use.
The administrators of Colombia’s General Royalties System (SGR) hosted planning secretaries from the country’s departmental governments to discuss the accomplishments of the new royalty system in its first year and talk about its reach looking forward.
Rural communities in Tibú, located in the Santander Norte department have erected barricades and organized protests which have 90% of Ecopetrol’s oil drilling and extraction activities stopped.
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