Ghana: We Will Pass KP Inspection

Ghana’s Minister of Lands Forestry and Mines, Professor Dominic Fobih, expects his country to pass its upcoming Kimberley Process (KP) inspection. He told the local press that Ghana is committed to the plan outlined at the recent KP Plenary meeting in Botswana.

At the Botswana meeting, Ghana was named as a country through which rough diamonds smuggled out of the Ivory Coast receive KP certificates. The certificates allow them to be sold worldwide as legal goods. Speaking to the Accra Mail, Fobih said, “The Action Plan is so critical to Ghana since it presents another opportunity for us to clean our image”.

The smuggled goods are presented to Ghana inspectors as local goods.

The March inspection, as decided by the KP Plenary, will follow a training program. Ghanaian officials will learn to identify locally mined goods and to differentiate them from goods coming from out of the country by a team headed by Paulus Geraedts, acting head of the European Commission in Ghana.

Fobih said the U.S. would provide additional assistance, but that "Ghana must be seen to be championing the process itself.” To facilitate this, the government has formed a supervisory body chaired by a deputy minister of Mines to give the entire process ministerial prominence.