Controversy over gold export is needless

At a time when Ghana needs to focus more on maximising revenue for development, there appears to be a needless misunderstanding between two state institutions, namely the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the Precious Minerals Marketing Company Limited (PMMC).

Which of these two institutions has the legal mandate to certify gold for export?

Product Certification is a third-part conformity assessment which gives written assurance that a product, process or service conforms to specified requirements. This involves the issue of a certificate or mark to demonstrate that a specific product meets a defined set of requirements for that product.

What this means is that certification carries a third-party guarantee that a product has been produced according to an applicable standard and that its production has been supervised and controlled. Again, it shows that a product has been tested and inspected.

This applies to many products, including a precious metal such as gold. In the case of gold, the term “hallmarking” is usually used to indicate the accurate determination and official recording of a proportionate content of that precious metal. Thus, hallmark refers to the official mark used as a guarantee of purity or fineness of an article such as a precious metal like gold.

Hallmarking is useful because it helps to protect the consumer against victimisation from impure gold. It also helps to develop export competitiveness, providing third-party assurance and satisfaction for the customer to get the right purity of gold for a given price.

In the absence of hallmarking by a competent authority, therefore, this third-party assurance will be missing and the customer cannot get value for money. In the same way, the exporter, if it is a country such as Ghana, may also miss out on the value for money for its gold products.

Over the years, Ghana has been losing billions of dollars in gold sales and this is a source of worry to the Bank of Ghana and well-meaning Ghanaians. If this is the case, then the issue of gold export will have to be resolved immediately so that while the PMMC focuses on the marketing of precious metals, the GSA, on its part, will also concentrate on hallmarking and export certification as far as gold export from this country is concerned.

There is no doubt that this will promote greater efficiency and rake in the needed massive revenue needed to finance development projects such as the Free SHS, school feeding, one-village, one-dam, one-district, one-factory, planting for food and jobs, as well as other developmental projects needed to improve upon the welfare of people in this country.

The NRCD 173: 1973, which established the GSA and the Weights and Measures Act 1975 (NRCD 326), makes the GSA the national statutory body responsible for standardisation, conformity assessment and metrology. The GSA is, therefore, a third party government conformity assessment body in the country.

On February 22, 2016, the Ghanaian Times reported a story headlined: “$18M Gold Seized…at Airport, BNI probes syndicate.” This raised unnecessary controversy in the country last year. If the GSA had played the role of a conformity assessment body in the export of gold, this problem could have been curtailed. This is because the gold exports would have been examined and an Export Certificate given to cover the consignment. Again, the exact value of the consignment would have been known.

The Association of Gold Exporters in the country has argued that the PMMC cannot be a referee in a competitive match in which it is one of the gold exporting teams on the field. Thus, if the purpose of the PMMC is to provide assaying and valuation services, then this is problematic because of its status as an exporter of gold. In this regard, the GSA, in view of its legal mandate, is clearly better placed to undertake this role.

The writer is Head of Public Relations, Ghana Standards Authority.