The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has expressed delight that the Bank of Ghana for considering the purchasing of locally-produced gold as a way of boosting the economy and shoring up the value of our currency,
This follows the vice president`s request in 2020 to the Central Bank.
Delivering a Keynote Address at the opening ceremony of the Ghana Gold Expo 2021 (Ghana Mining Week ’21), a mining policy forum, in Takoradi, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia said the Bank of Ghana spent a whole year carefully studying the entire gold production value chain and putting in place the necessary internationally acceptable procedures and has, since June 2021, begun a Gold Purchase Programme that will strengthen the future macroeconomic management and shore up the Cedi over time with real gold backing and the benefits are enormous and we can only hope and encourage the Bank to continue with this initiative.
According to the World Gold Council, central banks acquired a record level of about 670 tonnes to boost their reserves. Gold has now become the cornerstone of Central Banks’ reserve management. In 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Turkey was the largest annual gold buyer, adding 134.5 tonnes to its official gold reserves, followed by India (93.8 tonnes), United Arab Emirates (22 tonnes), and Qatar (9.18 tonnes).
Ghana’s entire gold reserves, at 8.7 tonnes, is equivalent to only 6.9 percent of South Africa’s gold reserve holdings of about 125.3 tonnes, despite being the largest gold producer in Africa and sixth in the world. The South African Reserve Bank has managed and held gold reserves since 1925 and purchases nearly all locally-produced gold. Other major players in the financial sector, such as the IMF and the World Bank, also hold large reserves of gold.
The BoG intends to focus its purchasing plans on artisanal small-scale mining, which accounts for 50% of Ghana’s gold production. With the government rolling out Community Mining Schemes and providing the miners with equipment and new technology that requires very little water, sometimes just a barrel, to extract the gold from the ore without using zero mercury or cyanide, the impact of a ready market for sustainably mined gold on the environment and the lives of the people in mining communities is expected to be far-reaching.
The setting up of local refineries, such as one by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) and Gold Coast Refinery, would further broaden the market for sustainably mined gold, fill in a missing part of Ghana’s extractive sector while seeing to the growth of local refining, Dr. Bawumia stated.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Kofi Atakora
