Mr. Sammy Gyamfi, the chief executive officer of the Ghana Gold Board, has cautioned that as authorities tighten their monitoring of the industry, people and businesses purchasing gold outside of authorised channels run the possibility of prosecution.
He recently stated that the Board is applying stringent procedures to guarantee responsible sourcing and traceability in an interview with Joy News’ PM Express Business Edition.
“That borders on the issue of responsible sourcing and traceability. So if you go on our website, you’ll see that we have a whole policy on responsible sourcing, and we don’t joke with that.”
He disclosed that the trade has been established in order to impose regulatory supervision on all buyers of gold.
“To start with, we have formalised the trade to ensure that anyone buying gold for us has our license. Once you have our license, we can control you, because the license is given to you on the basis of law, which allows us to regulate how you use it to buy gold.”
He states that there are stringent regulations associated with the licensing process.
“And so every license comes with terms and conditions, and you are told only to buy gold from licensed miners.”
He emphasised that violations will not be accepted.
“Section 50(9C) of the Gold Board Act says, if you breach any condition of your license, you have committed a crime. So that is a deterrence factor.”
Dealers who try to get around the system are directly warned by Mr. Sammy Gyamfi.
“If you are buying gold with a Gold board license, and you are caught buying gold from a minor other than a licensed miner, we can prosecute you. That is the first thing.”
He asserted that measures are being put in place to trace each ounce of gold bought in addition to enforcement.
“Now, the second thing is to put in place the systems that allow the gold board to monitor and ensure that every gram of gold it receives is from a responsible mine, not just a licensed mine, but a responsible mine.”
He pointed out that more extensive changes are being implemented to clean up the small-scale mining industry.
“So you need to roll out the formalisation program to ensure that we work together with the Ministry for Lands and Natural Resources to formalise a lot of these artisanal miners into the cooperative mining scheme, and also into the mainstream licensed small-scale mining sector.”
He continued, “The Gold Board is finalising the program for rollout.”
“So that formalisation program, we are putting it together, and very soon we will announce it. The President will be involved, and we’ll roll it out.”
Additionally, he said that a tracking system is now in construction. “The traceability solution is already being worked on.”
Source: newsthemegh.com