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Movement against the Ghana
hybrid system
Solomon Kwawukume
Fellow Ghanaians, time to wake up and
rise against the Exploration and Production Bill! We
are about to be sold down the river all over again!
Our economic independence is in serious jeopardy!
Parliament has resumed and very soon our
representatives in Parliament would be asked to pass
a death sentence on the economic independence and
emancipation of the present as well as the future
generations forever.
The death knell will be sounded
by the passage of the Petroleum Exploration and
Production Bill into law to regulate the Upstream
Oil Industry in the country, as a result of
recommendations from the Select Committee on Mines
and Energy based on deceit, misinformation,
falsehood and doctoring of calculations and
conjectures by the Petroleum Commission and others
to convince the Members of the Select Committee that
the Ghana Hybrid System is the best for Ghana and
superior to the Production Sharing Agreement GIGS
have been advocating for the country with cogent
calculations they are unable to challenge.
The economic hit men of the World Bank, Oxfam
America, Natural Resource Governance Institute, Star
Ghana and GIZ are responsible for the spread of
these deceits, falsehood and misinformation through
their sponsored CSO Platform on Oil And Gas, NGOs
and local Think Tanks by organizing long oil and gas
workshops for selected target groups such as some
Select Committees from Parliament, journalists
(scores of whom have been sponsored to study abroad
by the foreign companies), heads of government
institutions and organizations, leadership of Labour
and Trades Unions and Associations, traditional
rulers and any pressure group of interest in the
name of capacity building. Participants who have no
previous knowledge about the fiscal regime or
arrangements applicable in the Upstream Oil Industry
are brainwashed and fed with false and doctored
calculations to show the superiority of the Ghana
Hybrid System over the world accepted and popular
PSA. The hundreds of millions of dollars splashed
about in so-called corporate responsibility
projects, programmes, funding of NGOs and
scholarships, with promises of more to come, have
effectively bought off the consciences of the
Ghanaian elite comprising key government leaders in
both the executive and legislature and in the civil
society. As you all know by now, it does not take
much to buy the souls of the Ghanaian elite!
The unassuming subjected to the misinformation
sessions come out believing or pretending to believe
that Ghana, the Star of Africa, has done it again,
not knowing that their own fellow Ghanaians have
been paid to deceive them and to pull the wool over
their eyes. The question one may ask is: how
experienced are their fellow Ghanaians in the
Upstream Oil industry to devise a system better than
the long tested PSA most oil producing countries are
using?
Even Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam of ACEP in a testimony
to a Sub-Committee of the US Congress implied that
oil contracts in Ghana were bad deals, tinted with
corruption. GIGS has also identified them to be
illegal, ultra vires, unconstitutional and against
UN Charters and Resolutions on Permanent Sovereignty
over Natural Resources. The fact that governments
have approved them, and ratified by Parliament, do
not make them legal. They are still illegal acts
because they contravened the existing and subsisting
laws governing the upstream oil industry which have
not been repudiated. Both Governments and Parliament
have erred.
The passage of the Exploration and Production Bill,
a Ghana Hybrid System Law in the making, by our
representatives in Parliament, would legalize the
bad deals and corruption tinted contracts to
perpetuate the fraud and robbery of Ghanaians
forever in the name of investment. Our economic
independence shall forever remain a mirage and
poverty shall continue to reign in Ghana for the
mass of the people.
The economic crisis facing Ghana and our perpetual
least developed country status are self-inflicted,
as a result of greed, nepotism, selfishness,
mismanagement and corruption at all levels of
governance. The cumulative effects of these evils
over the decades cannot to be placed at the doorstep
of one government but all the previous governments
inclusive.
Many economic policies and decisions taken are
self-seeking and not in the national interest. The
Bill Parliament is about to pass tops the bill as
most damaging since independence!
The current policies and decisions underlying the
Upstream Oil industry are not the best and are
likely to rock the stability and security of Ghana
not too long in the distance future, if steps are
not taken now to correct the wrong policies and
decisions.
Follow Ghanaians, wherever you are on this Planet
Earth, send a message to your Members of Parliament
to reject and vote against the Bill. The Ghana
Hybrid System can never ever be superior to
Production Sharing Agreement in the Ghanaian
context. Ghana has already lost a colossal $6.004
Billion under the Hybrid System.
Demand adoption of Production Sharing Agreement and
call for renegotiation of all contracts and
agreements now.
Be part of the Movement Against the Ghana Hybrid
System (MAGHS).
We appeal to any concerned citizen or group of
citizens or organizations that care for this country
and can afford it to hire the Accra International
Conference Centre for GIGS. It would be highly
appreciated towards a good cause. We shall take time
and explain what Production Sharing Agreement is and
why Ghana should adopt it. We shall also prove to
Ghanaians and the whole world how Ghana lost the
US$6.004 Billion in 4½ years under the current
prevailing system. Ghanaians, you must resist and
stand up against the Ghana Hybrid System. If this
obnoxious Bill is passed, know that the economic
independence and emancipation of Ghanaians are
sacrificed forever. We have lost on gold and
diamonds; we cannot afford to lose this time round
on the black gold. We live in the midst of plenty as
a nation but we are poor and have become beggars,
with only a very few living in opulence.
In the meantime, we are still challenging the
Ministry of Petroleum, Ministry of Finance, GNPC,
Petroleum Commission, the World Bank, Oxfam America,
Natural Resource Governance Institute, Star Ghana
and their local agents to prove us wrong. Ghanaians
need to know the truth.
The Select Committee on Mines and Energy must stay
the Bill until a national consensus is arrived at.
They must realize they are dealing with the economic
destiny of the present as well as the future
generations.
Oil and Gas matters are not NDC or NPP issues, but
Ghana matter, therefore NDC and NPP and other
parties would have to wear the same knickers to
handle it for the benefit of all Ghanaians. That is
why we at GIGS are calling on all well-meaning
Ghanaians to rally round to oppose the passage of
this obnoxious at birth and cancerous Bill into law.
Solomon Kwawukume
Senior Research Officer
GIGS
Tel: +233 57 434 5193
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