CLAIM 2: UNDER THE GOLDBOD, A PERSON INCLUDING A CHIEF, WILL REQUIRE A LICENSE TO HOLD OR KEEP GOLD, JEWELRY AND OTHER GOLD PRODUCTS. AND THAT FAILURE TO DO THAT, CONSTITUTES A CRIME UNDER THE GOLDBOD BILL.
RESPONSE: TOTALLY FALSE
No provision in the Goldbod Bill passed by Parliament and awaiting the assent of the President, criminalizes the mere holding, possession and/or storage of Gold.
What constitutes a crime under the Goldbod Bill (Clause 68 (1)) is the HOARDING of gold.
It is worthy of note, that hoarding is not the same as keeping or being in possession of Gold.
Clause 68(1) of the Goldbod bill provides:
“A person shall not, without lawful authority, HOARD gold without a license or authorization issued by the Gold Board”.
Hoard is defined under Clause 74 of the Goldbod Bill as “the accumulation or storage of a gold mining product beyond reasonable business needs, with the purpose of manipulating market conditions or creating artificial scarcity”.
More importantly, Clause 68(2) provides that:
Subsection (1)- which is the offense creation section on hoarding, “DOES NOT APPLY TO A PERSON IN POSSESSION OF GOLD FOR PERSONAL OR VALUE STORAGE PURPOSES”.
The purpose of Clause 68(1) of the Goldbod Bill, is to prevent situations where licensed agents of the Goldbod, given funds by the Goldbod to buy gold for the Goldbod, will hoard gold for the purpose of causing scarcity or create unfair competition or manipulate prices , among others.
It is therefore false that the Goldbod Bill criminalizes the possession of gold by a person or Chief.
On the contrary, one of the functions of the Goldbod is to promote value addition, particularly, local gold fabrication into coins, tablets, bars and other castings and mints for Ghanaians.
One of the reasons for this function, is to promote gold as a better store of value than the U.S. dollar with the aim of reducing pressure on the Ghana cedi.
Thus, the Goldbod will consciously campaign for Ghanaians to buy gold products such as coins, tablets, tokens etc. for purposes of value storage.
The claim that possessing gold for ancestral, traditional or personal reasons constitutes a crime under the GoldBod Bill is totally false.
Sammy Gyamfi ( ESQ)
AG MD, PMMC
