Ethiopia’s national bank finds fool’s gold in vaults

Addis Ababa: The national bank of Ethiopia has been ordered to inspect all the gold in its vaults to determine its authenticity. The move comes in the wake of the discovery that some of the gold the bank had bought for millions of dollars is in reality gold-plated steel.
The forgery came to light when the country’s central bank exported a consignment of gold bars to South Africa. The consignment was sent back, with the South Africans complaining that they had been sold gilded steel. A government probe revealed that the Ethiopian bank had bought fake gold from a supplier, who has since been arrested. More arrests followed, including that of business associates of the supplier, bank officials and chemists from the Geological Survey of Ethiopia, whose job it is to certify that the bank’s gold buys are real. Gold is mined in Ethiopia in considerable quantities, and a trader selling gold to the central bank has to have it tested and certified by the Geological Survey.
Even more worrisome for the government is that a different batch of gold in the bank’s vaults has also been found to be fake, that too gold which was there for several years after being seized from smugglers trying to take it to Djibouti. Whether the bank bought fake gold in the first place, or whether real gold from the vaults has been swapped for gilded steel, the fraud has cost the bank many millions of dollars, and it must have involved collusion on a considerable scale.
The Ethiopian parliament’s budget and finance committee ordered the inspection of all gold in the national bank’s vaults.
A report from the auditorgeneral on the affair is expected to be presented to parliament during its current session. AGENCIES