Over six years after starting buying gold and gemstones, the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) now seeks the services of independent assessors to determine the authenticity of the two minerals.
The central bank also wants to assess the accuracy of weight and compliance with best practices associated with such minerals.
RBM has been buying the minerals from small-scale miners through its subsidiary, Export Development Fund (EDF).
In a notice filed on Thursday, the bank says the primary objectives of the independent assessor are to verify the authenticity and determine purity levels of minerals.
The independent assessors are also expected to determine the weight of minerals.
As of Thursday, RBM had bought 313kg of gold.
In addition, the bank had purchased 22kg of Rhodolite Garnets, 7.2kg of Sapphire, 900 grammes (g) of Aquamarine, 100g of Tourmaline and 40g of Ruby.
Quizzed on whether the bank has been buying the minerals without authentication, new RBM spokesperson Boston Maliketi Banda said the exercise was meant to provide added assurance to the assessment work conducted by their in-house gemologist.
He said all the purchases had received positive feedback from international gemstone traders.
“The purchases by the operations team have been independently assessed by a qualified internal gemologist. The assessment services being sought for in the advertisement are from an external assessor [and is meant] to provide an additional level of assessment,” Banda said.
Responding to questions from lawmakers in Parliament in December last year, President Lazarus Chakwera said the gold that RBM had procured would not be sold but purified and used as reserves.
Chakwera said recognising that gold was a national treasure, the government took a strategic move to operate the structured market for gold.
The President also said the strategic move was taken as one way of sanitizing the sector and capture new sources of foreign exchange generation
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