Company settles over toxic waste scandal

The Dutch-based multinational Trafigura has agreed to pay the equivalent of US $198 million to the Cote d’Ivoire government in a settlement over a toxic waste scandal.

In exchange, Ivorian officials have agreed to abandon legal action against the company. Trafigura asserted that the settlement did not amount to damages and it accepted no liability for the scandal.

Trafigura chartered the Probo Koala, the ship that carried the toxic waste to Abidjan last August, and contracted an Ivorian government-certified company to discharge the chemical slops. The sludge was dumped in residential areas of the city, sickening thousands of people.

The government said 10 people died of exposure to the toxic fumes, but tens of thousands of people flooded the city’s health clinics and hospitals complaining of headaches and nausea. The government at the time offered free health screening.

“We have accepted the clauses of the contract,” said Desire Tagro, a spokesman for the President Laurent Gbagbo, on state-run radio on Tuesday. “From today, we put an end to our legal proceedings against Trafigura. However, this does not include the proceedings undertaken against the multinational outside of Cote d’Ivoire.”

A British law firm, Leigh Day & Co, is pursuing a class action case against Trafigura on behalf of the toxic waste victims.

President Gbagbo said that most of the money from the settlement would be set aside to help the toxic waste victims. Trafigura said part of the funds would go toward financing an independent environmental audit in Abidjan, conducting an assessment of the continuing impact on the local community, and constructing a new domestic waste disposal plant and new hospital.

“I will be savage to anyone who would try to embezzle this money,” Gbagbo said on state-run radio on Tuesday.

Earlier this year at a special reception broadcast on Ivorian television, Gbagbo gave the minister of Social Affairs an envelope containing around $80,000 to go towards compensation. But toxic waste victims said the money never reached them, triggering protests. Ivorian officials have since engaged a public treasurer to manage similar funds. It is unclear if there will be cash payments or funding for community projects.

“We are skeptical about how this money will be used,” said Yssouf Tchima, president of the National Conference of Victims of Toxic Waste. “During the reception of victims by the head of state, people were just picked at random - people who had nothing to do with toxic waste and these are the ones who benefited from the assistance of the presidency.”

Raymond Boga, who represents another collective of victims, said he had confidence in Gbagbo’s measures.

“But we also say that the victims who should be counted should be the real ones. People shouldn’t think that because there’s money that everyone should benefit from it,” he said.

After the toxic waste scandal erupted, Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny suspended the ministers of the port, customs and Abidjan district. But Gbagbo later reinstated them, provoking demonstrations by members of the political opposition.

aa/cs/nr