Gold for oil deal: A ploy to syphon Ghana's gold - Alex Mould

A former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) is raising some pertinent concerns about the government's gold-for-oil deal.

According to Mr Alex Mould, the deal is a ploy to take the shares of the market.

He says what is worrying is the beneficiary players will be having a share in both gold exports and petroleum products imports under the guise of government policy via government institutions and even the regulators of these sectors.

Mr Mould said these in a statement.

Find details of the statement below:

Is the oil import programme under this G4O deal going to be a long-term contract with only one International Oil-Trading Company (IOTC), or will there be bidding for each cargo?

More importantly, the bidding process must be open and transparent.

The first 41,000 metric ton (tonnes or MT) of petroleum products imported was brought in by LITASCO.

On this first G4O cargo contract, did it go through a public procurement bidding process? Was it open and transparent?

Who represents LITASCO in Ghana? And, who is the beneficial representative?

BoG Risks Exposure in this G4O transaction

Bank of Ghana is the most exposed government institution in this G4O deal.

The importer on record, BOST, who is directly exposed to the credit risk of the BDCs, does not give cover to BoG via the provision of a bank letter of credit/guarantee.

In this G4O BoG then uses the foreign exchange obtained from the sale of gold (which would normally then flow into the banking system in Ghana) to pay for the petroleum products imports.

BoG is taking the direct risk exposure to buy the oil on behalf of BOST who then takes delivery of the oil and then sells to GoENERGY (and, maybe, some other BDCs) who should then provide some financial guarantee to BOST to cover credit and operational risk.

BoG is using gold reserves or buying the gold from small-scale/community miners using Govt money, or by giving a loan to Govt (PMMC) from BoG balance sheet to buy the gold.

While all the underlying transactions may be legal, certain government players and advisors are using their influence to direct government policy as well as government institutions including the Regulator, to muscle out existing players in order to enrich themselves;

THIS IS THE UNETHICAL PROBLEM