Ethiopia passes inspection order over gold bullions

By Tesfa-alem Tekle

February 25, 2008 (ADDIS ABABA) — The office of Prime Minister last week passed an order for the inspection of all deposited gold bars at the national bank of Ethiopia (NBE) to the house of people representatives public accounts and budget and finance standing committees.

The order comes after some gold bars inside the vaults of NBE were discovered to be fake.

According to sources, last week, a 36kg gold bar, deposited 5 years ago by the ministry of finance and economic development was found out to be gold plated steel.

The bill which come at a time parliament was in access is expected to be ratified on march 14,when the house resumes it’s regular session.

The recent sporadic gold scandals started about two month ago when NBE discovered that some of the gold bullion at its reserve vaults was steel gilded with gold. The first scandal was followed by another a week ago, which involves fake gold bars for which the bank had paid some 60 million birr.

Some 36 kg gold bars which the Federal Police intercepted when being smuggled to Djibouti years ago and later deposited at NBE vaults was also last week discovered to be fake.

Most of the suspects involved in the series of gold scandals are under police custody awaiting trial.

(ST)