National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas calls for new law banning gas export

?A law has to be enacted scraping the model PSC 2008 to ban gas export,? Prof Anu Mohammad told the national convention of the Committee at the city?s Engineers Institution.

Thousands of leaders and activists of the National Committee from different parts of the country joined the convention held with its convener Engineer Sheikh Muhammad Shahidullah in the chair.

They also stood in solemn silence for one minute and placed wreaths commemorating those killed during the Phulbari Movement in 2006.

The meeting was told that the government is trying to go on looting spree in the name of exploring gas in the bay and destroy the ecological system with open-pit coal mining.

?Multinational companies have been plundering our energy resources, as we?ve failed to ensure our ownership on those,? Prof Sirajul Islam said.

He urged people to be united for a national movement to protect the country?s resources from the hands of imperialist forces and multinational companies. ?There is no chance to be defeated in this movement,? Prof Sirajul Islam said.

Workers Party chairman Rashed Khan Menon said there should be no export provision in the model PSC 2008 if the country does not want to export gas.

Menon said he will place a demand in parliament for discussion on enacting a law banning gas export.

Prof Anu Muhammad said the country is facing a serious energy crisis due to deals with multinational companies even though the country is capable enough to extract the resources.

He said the multinational companies extracted about 47 percent gas from 12 gas blocks of which the country got only 10 percent while the rest is being bought at over 30 times higher rates.

Prof Anu said the country would not face any gas crisis now if those gas blocks had not been given to the multinational companies.

He said those gas blocks had been given to the multinational companies for lack of experts and financial support to extract gas, but most of the experts of those companies are now Bangladeshis.

?The government is willing to allow surveys in three more gas blocks in the bay by multinational companies which will only cost Tk 11 billion in 5 years,? he added.

Citing the example of Nigeria, Prof Anu said, ?Their resources have turned into a curse for them as it caused anarchy in the country.?

He urged the government to implement the Plubari agreement negotiated between the government and people after an unexpected incident during a movement against the open-pit coal mining there.

Justice Golam Rabbani, Member secretaries Prof. Haider Akbar Khan Rono, Khalequzzaman, Col Nuruzzaman, among others, addressed the meeting.

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