Oil pipeline layoffs signal job cuts surge in sector

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is a 1,443km pipeline that once completed will run through 10 districts in Uganda, stretching from Hoima in Uganda to the Indian Ocean at the Tanga Port, west of Tanzania. PHOTO | FILE

As construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) nears completion, the project company has initiated mass layoffs in Uganda and Tanzania, triggering anxiety among section of staff.

The move has also stoked claims of discrimination amid claims of retention of majorly expatriate staff during the next operation and maintenance (O&M) phase.

According to inside accounts, a number of staff at Eacop Ltd, the holding company of the Uganda-Tanzania oil pipeline, were late-last month caught flat-footed by being handed addendums extending their employment from July 1 to October 31, 2026 to “support the company’s “transition requirements.”

The Eacop Ltd’s managing director, Mr Guillaume Dolout, and human resource director Eileen Baguma, on secondment to the company from TotalEnergies EP, the majority shareholder in the project, signed the addendums, according to documents seen by this publication.

“This addendum amends only the staff expiry date of the contract and does not create a new indefinite or open-ended employment relationship,” the addendum reads in part.

It further reads: “For avoidance of doubt, the addendum does not constitute, and shall not be construed as constituting, any representation, promise, assurance or commitment by the company regarding any further extension, renewal, redeployment, transfer, re-engagement or continued employment beyond the expiry date.

Nothing in this addendum, any transition support, internal communication, recruitment process, project transition activity or post-expiry administrative support shall create or be construed as creating any legitimate expectation of renewal or continuation of employment beyond the expiry date, unless expressly confirmed in writing by the company.”

After the massive bloodbath, the plan, according to knowledgeable sources, is to retain a lean staff of 50 to 100 critical to the O&M phase.

However, the fate of particularly the local staff to be retained remains unknown as it has since emerged that their jobs will be readvertised.

Some accounts pointed to expatriate workers, who are already paid well, being given preferential treatment.

Some staff also described some of their local managers as “spineless” and “stooges” keen on exhibiting to the oil executives in Kampala, London and Paris that they are capable of taking “radical decisions.”

This, amid