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A policy think-tank, Ghana Institute of Governance and Security (GIGS), has sent its crusade on the country�s oil agreement to the doorsteps of the Council of State, and is seeking the intervention of the advisory body to prevent both the government and Parliament from ratifying the Petroleum Exploration and Production Bill 2013, in its current form. GIGS is pleading with the Council of State to call on the President of Ghana, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, to withdraw the bill from Parliament, to save the country and generations from being entangled in a long term economic doom. The policy think tank is further pleading with the Council, as a matter of urgency, to advise President and Cabinet to immediately invite independent international experts from Baker and Mckenzie, a Swiss organisation specialised in matters relating to international oil contracts, to review the draft bill to reflect global standards, in order to achieve maximum benefits for the country. GIGS contends that the agreement, in its current state, will cost Ghana about $30 billion oil revenue in the next 20 years, whilst enriching foreign companies engaged in the exploration and production of the mineral resource. In a strongly-worded petition sent to the Council, and copied to various institutions, including the Speaker of Parliament, Trades Union Congress (TUC), Christian Council of Ghana, National Peace Council, and the Catholic Bishops Conference, the organisation said it was hopeful the President and his cabinet of ministers would be compelled to withdraw the draft bill, after they had received adequate briefing on the ramifications of the bill when passed into law. The organisation is, therefore, seeking to make formal graphical presentations to these recognised bodies, with the hope of convincing them to understand the repercussions of passing the current draft bill into Law. GIGS contends that the draft bill is a far departure from the spirit and intent of PNDCL 64 and PNDCL 84, which explicitly touch on the pure Production Sharing Agreement, stressing that all agreements and contracts signed to date were not compatible and in conformity with the tenets of these laws. �We have discovered that the draft bill is modelled on Modern Concession -a hybrid between the old traditional Concession and Production Sharing Agreements. The agreement is a brainchild of the World Bank and their ally countries, Britain and American in the late 1990s, as an antidote to the pure Production Sharing Agreement, which emerged in the early 60s in East Indonesia,� the letter pointed out. The GIGS further averred that the Modern Concession Agreement is what the World Bank, IMF, Oxfam America and Revenue Watch Institutes are �forcing down the throat of Ghana, with the support of their local surrogates syndicated network of 135 Civil Society Organisations Platform, established in 2008, and funded by these same foreign companies.� �Without mincing words, our elite technocrats, who are in charge of oil and gas matters, are part of this conspiracy against the masses of Ghanaians. If the bill is passed into law, it would amount to an economic suicide committed by leaders of Ghana, plunging the current generation and the future ones to come after us into eternal economic bondage, akin to modern day slavery,� GIGS emphasised. The organisation made reference to several workshops, which were organised before the exploration of oil across the 10 regions, on how an expected $5 billion proceed would be spent, stressing, however, that three years down the line, not even half of the amount had been realised. �So far, Ghana has made only $1.77 billion, whilst foreign oil companies made away $7.590 billion. Meanwhile, the total investment of about US$3.50 billion, which Ghana also contributed to, was realised in three years. By the end of the first quarter ending 31st March 2014, Ghana earned US $1.984 billion, while the contractors earned US 8.544 billion. This is clearly as a result of the Modern Concession Agreement which we are about to sign into law,� it noted.