BoG sweats over 40,000 tons of bauxite export

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) appears to have little or no knowledge about 40,000 metric tons of bauxite worth US$41million that was exported from the shores of Ghana in 2015.

Officials of the Central Bank seemed to have found themselves in the wonderland when their attention was drawn to the issue and why they failed to record or account for it in their 2015 audited report.

The BoG had accounted for foreign exchange receipts and payments of cocoa, gold, manganese and oil revenue made to their outfit but that of bauxite produced by the Ghana Bauxite Company was missing.

Member of Parliament for Efutu and member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Hon. Alexander Afenyo-Markin who raised the matter during the PAC sitting, Tuesday, questioned why the 40,000 metric tons of bauxite was not captured in the books of the central bank.

“Bauxite is a major export component of our economy and if for the whole year it was not captured at all, and we want to believe that this is the full report of our foreign exchange receipts, then with respect, we need answers. The bauxite which was exported was not captured at all in the report, we have only manganese. I know as a fact by way of disclosure – I am a contractor there, and I know of volumes of tonnage of bauxite that were exported within the period as a matter fact. The Minerals Commission has given reports to Parliament and we have other information. So, I want to know why that was conspicuously absent,” he noted.

The PAC had met to consider the Report of the Auditor-General on the Statement of Foreign Exchange Receipts and Payment of the Bank of Ghana for the half year ended June 30, 2015 and December 31, 2015.

Dr. Johnson P. Asiamah, Second Deputy Governor, responding to the issue pleaded with the PAC to give them some time to cross check the issue and report back to them.

SOURCE: business-ghanaweb