The national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and ports has threatened to enforce a general strike and hold agitation programmes across the country if the government leases out offshore gas
blocks to international oil companies by way of the model production sharing contract 2008.
The national committee is likely to enforce the daylong general strike in the last week of June or the first week of July if the government signed the deal to lease out two office gas blocks to the US oil company ConocoPhillips, the committee convener, Sheikh Muhammad Sahaheedullah, told New Age on Tuesday.
The government has a plan to sign a production sharing contract with the company to lease out offshore gas bocks 10 and 11 on June 14 and such a deal would go against national interest, he said.
According to the deal, ConocoPhillips will get 80 per cent of the gas extracted with the permission for its sale and 'it will be difficult for us to use the rest 20 per cent of the gas by feeding it into the national grid,' he said.
'We will lose the ownership on the gas if the unequal deal is signed,' he added.
The national committee will hold countrywide black flag processions on the day the deal will be signed.
The committee will also hold a programme of siege and hold a long march to drum up support for the committee's movement against gas block leas-out.
The national committee will also hold a march towards Dhaka in October with thousands of activists joining in shouting the slogan Chalo Chalo Dhaka Chalo (March to Dhaka) to force the government not to sing such unequal deals.
The Awami League-led government is going to sign such deals to satisfy the imperialist forces, Shaheedullah said. The people will never accept such unequal deals.
The citizens' committee backed by the left-leaning and democratic political parties was formed 12 years ago. It held a series of programmes to save the mineral resources of the country.
Source: New Age
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