A number of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the country have painted a bleak picture about the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), warning the government will be consigning the economy to irretrievable doom, if it signs the pact. The CSOs say the government must not allow itself to be pressured into signing an agreement which will be detrimental to long-term development goals and aspirations of the country. At a forum organized by the Third World Network – Africa, the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), and ISODEC in Accra, there was unanimity that ratifying the agreement will amount to committing economic crimes against the state. Speaking at the Forum, Dr David Persey, a consultant to the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers, said the government must declare its stance – whether it is with the people of Ghana or the Europeans. For him, the EPA was designed to further the interest of Europe and that there was no basis for the government of Ghana to even be contemplating signing it. Citing the poultry industry, he said, Ghana used to produce enough to meet domestic needs with its concomitant effects on jobs and wealth creation. However, since the day the government repealed its own law in 2003 originally intended to protect the industry, and allowed unlimited importation of poultry products, the investments of citizens who toiled to build structures for the production and processing of poultry have gone under the drain because cheap products have flooded the market. Supporting his argument, the Executive Director of the Abantu for Development, Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, who chaired the forum, said Ghana was having a crisis on its hands. She said if even now, Ghana’s streets were swarming with teeming jobless young men and women, all Ghanaians must be worried because the situation could get worse if the EPAs are signed and the economy takes a turn for the worse.