adminBoard chairman of Precious Minerals Marketing Company Limited (PMMC) Mr Kwabena Kyereh announced on Tuesday that the money would be repatriated into the West African nation through Ghana’s banking system.
Mr Kyereh said the funds were a major contribution by the company to the foreign exchange requirements of Ghana.
PMMC is a wholly state-owned company established in 1963 to undertake the buying and selling of gold, diamonds and the manufacturing and selling of gold jewellery for Ghana.
He made the announcement at the company’s sixth Annual General Meeting held in Accra.
Mr Kyereh, who is also a retired educationist, added: “From the sale of jewellery, the company levied Value-Added Tax, from which an amount of US$465 179,86 was collected and paid to the government through the Ghana Revenue Authority whilst US$292 737,08 was collected in the previous year.”
He told the shareholders that the company had always been up-to-date in its statutory corporate tax obligations through the self-assessment scheme administered by the Large Tax Payers Unit of the GRA.
“By the close of the year, an amount of US$100 124,21 had been paid to the government as corporate tax on profits earned for the year’s operations,” Mr Kyereh said.
Touching further on the financial performance of the PMMC, Mr Kyereh admitted: “The year 2011 was full of challenges in the financial markets which affected our industry especially in the latter part of the year.
“From September to December, there was a steep and erratic decline of the prices of our major trading line-gold. London Metal Exchange (LME) prices dropped to US$1 588 an ounce from US$1 830; the same was for diamonds.”
During the year under review, the company achieved a profit before tax of US$160 868,95 representing 34 percent of the previous year’s of US$471 452,64.
This fell short of the budget by 55,96 percent, the board chairman hinted. Mr Kyereh explained the decrease in profits.
“By the end of the year, we were holding a stock of unsold gold of 5 653 300 ounces valued at US$7,9 million.”
This was attributable to the wide and sudden gold price fluctuations from September to December.
Should this have been sold at the prices the management and board of the company anticipated from their forecasts, it would have yielded a margin of US$74 805,80 to bring the company’s profit to US$203 042,64, he added.
Mr Kyereh also disclosed that diamond purchases from the small-scale miners reduced by 8 percent from 324 220 carats in 2010 to 281 240 carats. Furthermore, the turnover for the year 2011 was US$77,7 million.
This represents a 1,15 million decrease over 2010’s amount of US$78,6 million.
The drop the board chairman explained was again due to the unsold stock of gold of 5 653 300 ounces held at the close of the year. — CAJ News.
Online Reporter