Intercepted Gold: Provide exportation documents; not press statements – Yamin tells BoG

The National Organizer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Joseph Yamin, has challenged the Bank of Ghana to produce documentation covering gold bars that were seized at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

Dr Yamin, who chairs the asset retrieval task force of the transition Committee, says instead of helping the police with credible defences, the central bank and the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) are rather engaged in releasing statements attacking him for leading the team that intercepted the bullion van.

On Tuesday, December 17, 2024, the police took custody of some 17 boxes of bullion bars after Dr. Joseph Yamin led a team to intercept the consignment purportedly billed for export to Dubai via an Emirates Airline.

In a statement, PMMC explained that the bullion bars belong to the Bank of Ghana as part of the ongoing Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), which was launched in June 2021.

PMMC took it hard at Joseph Yamin and the team for disrupting a lawful exercise, warning that the development had the distasteful potential of tarnishing the image of Ghana on the international bullion market.

Challenging the statements on Ultimate FM’s Cup of Tea, Joseph Yamin pointed out that per his checks, his team was not the only body that had picked Intel off the bullion truck, which kept changing locations until it parked at the National Assayer later in the evening.

He disclosed that the consignment was under the radar of notable state agencies, including the Airport Police, the National Investigations Bureau and the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority.

He indicated that both his team and the police have video accounts of the officers of the PMMC and the Security Detail of the Bank of Ghana, who were completely at sea when they were interrogated.

He said the officers kept fumbling about the weight of the gold in transit with no indication that the gold had emanated from the Bank of Ghana.

“They had sealed and embossed the boxes to be transported, but the kilos were not on it. The man who was doing business on behalf of the Bank of Ghana did not know it,” he recounted.

He told host Julius Caesar Anadem, “It is not about press releases. It is about documentation, and the bank of Ghana, which owns the gold, is not proving with documents that the thing is for them.”

“I would have expected that they put forth documents that suggest that, say, 20 kilos of gold has left Bank of Ghana, the state is expecting 50 billion dollars after that transaction and that PMMC are supposed to do that transaction. As we sit here, no documentation has come through,” he noted.

Yamin alleged that another consignment of a hundred kilos had already left the country on a KLM flight.

He indicated that his Intel from the airport suggests that several other transactions, including the exportation of physical dollars, had been successfully carried out after the New Patriotic Party lost the elections some two weeks ago.

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