Kofi Bentil, Senior Fellow at IMANI Ghana, has cautioned against the use of state funds to purchase gold, citing the potential for future probes into mismanagement and corruption.
Speaking on JoyNews NewsFile, monitored by www.kumasimail.com Bentil painted a vivid picture of a market where gold prices are soaring, attracting a flurry of private investors eager to capitalize on the trend.
He said “today as we speak gold is extremely hot like the price of gold has gone very high there’s a lot of money chasing gold i can tell you now here mark it, there is no need for government to put any state funds behind the buying of gold and mark it, every money we put as a government behind the buying of gold today tomorrow we come back and we
establish probes around it because they will be wasted and looted”.
Bentil argued that with the gold market experiencing unprecedented demand, there is no compelling reason for the government to inject state funds into buying gold.
Instead, Bentil suggested that private investors should be allowed to drive this commercial activity.
He noted “you can arrange such that private funds will go there and there are enough people trying to buy gold”.
He highlighted the risks of conflicts of interest when a government entity both regulates and engages in commercial activities, such as determining gold purity.
“this country we have departed from that and internationally is wrong so I’m saying look, if you are the person buying the
gold and then you are the same person say that the gold is 60% pure or 50% pure after a while you will buy the gold when it’s 90% pure you say it’s 60% pure
because you are the one who determines it
“when the commercial entity is also the regulating entity that one is the one deal you are dealing with somebody but you are the person policing the person there are too many conflicts there”, he explained.
He emphasized that while the intention to combat illegal mining (galamsey) and maximize gold revenue is commendable, the current model is fraught with risks.
“so we are saying look in our eagerness to try and stop galamsey whatever it is we may be making too many mistakes look it’s a good direction but this model is problematic”, he stressed.
Source: www.kumasimail.com /Kwadwo Owusu
