Lawyers for gold trading company Menzgold have rejected claims by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) that the company’s licence has been revoked.
It follows ongoing disagreements between Menzgold and the Bank of Ghana over its operations.
Managing Director of PMMC Opare Hammond is claiming Menzgold is not licensed to buy and sell gold as suggested by the company.
According to him, Menzgold earlier license granted by the PMMC in 2014 has long been revoked.
“The Minerals Commission would usually give you the license and there is a small clause that says ‘you buy gold for export’ and I don’t know if that is what they[Menzgold] are relying on to do this. If that is what they are relying on, then they are doing the wrong thing. One is supposed to buy and package the raw gold before exporting it,” the PMMC’s boss told Accra-based Joy FM.
But Menzgold is challenging the claim.
Speaking to Starr News, Lawyer for Menzgold, Kwame Akuffo rubbished the claims of the PMMC as untenable.
According to him, the Association of Gold Exporters of Ghana took up an arbitration against the Bank of Ghana and the PMMC and it was that the arbitrator “held that the parties have agreed that the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources shall then nominate the PMMC as the government’s independent at-sale-laboratory.”
“So immediately this occurred in 2015 there was no need to renew the license with the PMMC,” Lawyer Akuffo told Starr News’ Kwaku Obeng Adjei Thursday, August 9.
“Subsequently,” he continued “we moved on to the Minerals Commission to obtain an export license. There has never been a singular instance, or a plural instance or multiple instances where the PMMC revoked the licence of Menzgold or MenzBank Ghana Limited. It’s never occurred.
“So when Mr Opare Hammond does so, he’s engaged in economic defamation, he’s engaged in undermining the integrity and reputation of Menzgold.”
Lawyer Akuffo went further to advise Mr Hammond to stick to the dictates of his office saying, “he oversteps the boundaries of the jurisdiction allotted to him by his office. He is not the public relations officer of the Minerals Commission. He is responsible for the conducts of staff and the regulations of the PMMC.”
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