GoldBod hasn’t even opened the books yet… but the fight is already ON.
Eric Afful, the head of Parliament’s Economy Committee, said that the reported $214 million “loss” under the Gold-for-Reserves (G4R) program should not be called a loss but a cost of doing business for the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod). He said this in response to worries raised by the Minority in Parliament about how the program was allegedly being run poorly. Afful said on Joynews’ Newsnight on Monday, December 29, that the Gold Board has not yet officially released its financial statements. “Gold board has not given its financials.” There was information going to the IMF about the $240 million, though… I have faith that you can’t call the $240 million losses as you are now. Not losses. It costs money. “It’s a cost of doing business for the gold board,” he said. The comments come at a time when the Minority in Parliament is asking for a bipartisan investigation into the program. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the MP for Ofoase Ayirebi, told reporters that a temporary committee in Parliament should be able to get all contracts, licenses, intermediaries, and other related entities to show up. He also told the Bank of Ghana and GoldBod to make public the fees, pricing formulas, and criteria for choosing an aggregator, as well as the foreign exchange arrangements that go along with the G4R initiative. Oppong Nkrumah also expressed worries about gold mined from forest reserves. He called for a halt to permits in these areas and for stricter measures to track gold. The Minority says that the investigation is needed to make sure that people are held accountable, that the government is open about its spending, and that state funds are not used for illegal mining.
