Gold for oil policy not novel, it won’t achieve intended result – Yao Graham

The Coordinator of the Third World Network Africa, Dr. Yao Graham, has described government’s gold for oil policy as merely a crisis management approach that shouldn’t be treated as though it was a great opportunity missed by previous policymakers.

Speaking on the Point of View on Citi TV, Mr. Graham, said the policy “is just a crisis management approach” and should not be tagged “as a profound innovation that somehow some generation of policymakers missed out on.”

He questioned the legitimacy and availability of the gold needed to execute the policy which he said isn’t simply there for the successful implementation of the policy.

He stressed that the agreements the government has had with the various stakeholders, most importantly, with mining companies regarding the policy will likely truncate the policy midway because there will certainly be some kickbacks from small-scale miners in the country.

“Based on the agreements that the large-scale mining companies have with the government, they know that the government cannot insist on buying all the gold, and they agreed with the government to sell 20 percent of their production to the government.

“The small-scale miners feel discriminated against because while the government intends to buy some of the gold produced by the large-scale mining companies, it intends to buy all the gold produced by the small-scale miners. There is not even attention paid to the business model of small-scale mining companies.”

The policy was announced by the government to help reduce the pressure on the cedi and bring in cheaper fuel.

So far only 40,000 metric tons of fuel had been brought into Ghana under the policy.