Activists pile more pressure on Bidco
KAMPALA, MAY31 – Kenya based African oil miller Bidco is facing yet more pressure after activists launched The Bidco Truth Coalition, an online activist organisation, launched www.No2Bidco.org, a platform dedicated to charting the company’s human rights and environmental violations.
No2Bidco.org details Bidco’s violations, including illegal labour practices in Kenya, deforestation in Uganda and tax evasion across East Africa. The platform also provides visitors with the ability to add their voices to a global campaign of petitions and letter-writing to reveal Bidco’s business practices.
According to the activists, No2Bidco.org’s central archive of independent reports about Bidco provides activists, businesses, governments and NGOs unfiltered access to information free from Bidco’s influence on the media.
The platform’s anchor organisation is the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), the Uganda-based Friends of the Earth affiliate. Other organisations include the Bugala Farmers Association, a Ugandan group of more than 100 farmers who lost their land to Bidco; Citizens for Tax Compliance, a Kenya-based group that advocates corporate tax compliance; the Association of Non-aligned Bidco Workers.