IVORY COAST citizens who suffered damages due to improper toxic waste disposal by the Dutch oil trading company, Trafigura, have rejected their government's offer of compensation.

Family members of 16 people who died when the waste was dumped in the country's largest city, Abidjan, were offered £100,000 each. Smaller sums were offered to thousands who fell ill.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that victims' groups dismissed the offer as cynical, as the amount offered is less than half the total allocated to the government.

Trafigura, which was at the centre of a $31 million donation to the governing People's National Party (PNP) here last year, was responsible for chartering a vessel in which the toxic waste was loaded and later dumped in the African country in 2006.

£102m clean-up

In an out of court settlement reached earlier this year, Trafigura said it would pay £102 million for a clean-up and investigation.

The oil-trading group Trafigura agreed to pay the money in February, but said it was not liable for dumping the waste.

Trafigura had first attempted to discharge the chemical from one of its tankers in the Dutch port of Amsterdam in early August 2006.

However, the company that had agreed to the dumping of the waste spiked its charges and this forced Trafigura to look towards Nigeria for the dumping of the toxic waste.

Trafigura again failed to reach an agreement for offloading the waste and it was in the Ivory Coast that they found a company that was willing to handle the waste at a reasonable cost to them.

The toxic waste was dumped near Abidjan. in August and soon afterwards complaints arose as people go ill because of the materials that should have been incinerated rather than dumped.

BBC reported that victims' groups dismissed the offer as cynical, as the amount offered is less than half the total allocated to the government.