As part of measures to ensuring that there is effective monitoring of gold exports from both large- and small-scale mining, Government has launched Digitalised Assay Laboratory- a part of the National Assay Programme rolled out in 2017.
Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumiam, said during the launch in Accra on Wednesday that “We are doing The Program has been carried out through the National Assay Laboratory, which was first set up and equipped with support from the World Bank through the Minerals Commission. We are grateful to the World Bank for this support. We will also like to encourage more collaboration among the agencies of State, as happened between the Minerals Commission and the PMMC to see to the establishment of the Laboratory.”
He continued that “My personal interest in seeing to the implementation of the President’s directive, along with the support of the then Sector Minister, saw PMMC officially commence operations as the National Assayer with the mandate to assay all gold earmarked for export from Ghana, in February 2018.”
Digitization, the vice president intimated, has now made it possible to generate assay certificates which have unique security features. These unique features, he said, will make the certificates difficult to forge by gold scammers to facilitate their dubious elaborate schemes.
“Digitization has also now made it possible to monitor in real time, gold exports passing through the National Assay Laboratory. Additionally, it has improved collation of timely data on gold export figures and revenues in order to aid national economic planning,” Dr. Bawmia indicated.
He expressed happiness that the launch of the Digitalized National Assay Laboratory was a major addition to the Government’s portfolio of digital initiatives already implemented.
The minister for lands and natural resources, honourable. Samuel a Jinapor, said “…we are here to witness the launching of the Digitalised National Assay Laboratory, to be operated by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company Ltd (PMMC), another agency under the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources. This Digitalised Assay Laboratory is part of the National Assay Programme we rolled out in 2017, to effectively monitor gold exports from both large- and small-scale mining.”
We are doing all these, the minister disclosed, as part of measures to make the lands and natural resources sector of our country fit for purpose, for the benefit of Ghanaians, adding that “Article 257(6) of our national Constitution, vests all minerals in their natural state in the President of the Republic, ‘on behalf of, and in trust for the people of Ghana.’ The exploitation and utilisation of our mineral resources must, therefore, inure to the benefit of the people of Ghana, the true owners of these minerals.”
