The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has announced that Ghana has finally acquired the capacity to certify it gold bars. This means that, henceforth, all gold bars leaving the shores of the country will be certified before being exported.
Prof. Alex Dodoo, Director General of the GSA, recently made the announcement at a special ceremony held in Accra to outdoor some newly hallmarked gold bars. Known as ‘Ghana Gold’ the first set of bars were presented to Gold Coast Refinery Limited, a gold dealership company.
Prof. Dodoo noted that “the GSA has developed and adopted over 10 national and international standards for gold and other precious minerals. We have also secured a world-class gold assay laboratory, equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, comprising an X-ray Fluorescence Machine and all the requirements for fire assay analysis.”
The Minister of Trade, Mr. Alan Kyeremanten, who graced the occasion as the special guest also said that “our country has the reputation of being the gold coast of Africa but our country is not recognised internationally in the gold trading business because we only export raw gold.
The minister, therefore, expressed the hope that the new certification process will immensely benefit the gold industry in Ghana.
Certification of gold ensures that they conform to international standards on hallmarking based on the 1972 Vienna Convention. The standards include assaying or attesting for the purity and value of the gold.
Ghana has been mining gold for more than a century, and she comes next to South Africa as the continent’s largest producer. In 2017, all the mining companies in the country produced 2.81 million ounces of gold. This translated into GH¢2.16 billion collected in revenues by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
Some of the major mining companies in the country include Newmont Mining Corporation, Gold Fields, Anglogold Ashanti and Asanko Gold.
