Fabulously rich businessman and miner, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, on Wednesday mounted an unexpected exhibition of gold bars with street value he was unwillingly to disclose on Wontumi TV Screens and other online platforms.
But deep throat sources say “the value of the displayed bars of pure gold could amount to several millions of US dollars.”
The exhibition which took the host and panel members by surprise enabled the outspoken politician to make a virtual presentation of what exactly pure gold looks like.
It was the first time in Ghana’s history that gold bars had so openly been displayed. Not even at the mine site of the major gold mining conglomerates operating anywhere in the country has gold bars been so publicly displayed.
Gold for security reasons are not exposed so viewers who chanced upon the Wontumi gold bars display are most likely to consider themselves as lucky for gold in such huge quantities to be so openly displayed.
As Chairman Wontumi, famed for wearing a long golden chain to portray his seamless wealth sometimes past, mesmerized viewers as he counted his gold wealth by cautiously placing the giant bars- six of them- one after the other on the studio desk.
At that magical moment, all that the panel members and the host of the programme, Oheneba Nana Asiedu could do was to look on in utter disbelief as Chairman Wontumi chanted, “this is solid money, people say I am rich but my wealth is measured in gold not in physical cash.”
The history of gold mining in Ghana dates back several centuries but Ghanaians have been denied the opportunity to visualize let alone owning gold in its pure and raw form.
Chairman Wontumi’s unexpected show-off will go down in history as the first day that majority of Ghanaians saw on display what gold, which Ghana exports in large quantities looks like. Gold is Ghana’s signature product. It earned the country its first corporate name, the Gold Coast.
Chairman Wontumi until the John Mahama’s era, was reputed to be the leading local miner in the country with an earning of one million dollars a day from the sale of gold . But he is yet to be paid his compensation for losing over 500 excavators and 400 pick-up trucks used for his operations as well as gold bars and other mining equipment to the ruthlessness of the administration of the former President..
“It was out of envy that John Mahama sent a task force to my mining site to burn my equipment, took away a huge quantity of gold and an undisclosed sum of money…” Chairman Wontumi has often made this utterance to lament his greatest misfortune.
Custody Of Gold
The storage or display of huge quantities of gold reserves are usually guarded by strict security rules and guidelines. In The United States for in stance the Bullion Depository also known as Fort Knox., where their mined gold bars are kept is a fortified vault building next to a United States army post. A special police detachment called US Mint Police protects the depository.
The depository is a secure facility. Between its fenced perimeter and granite lined concrete structure lie rings of razor wire and minefields, The grounds are monitored by high-resolution night vision video cameras and microphones.
The subterranean vault is made of steel plates, I-beams and cylinders encased in concrete. Its torch-and-drill resistant door is 21 inches (53 cm) thick and weighs 20 short tons (18 metric tons). The vault door is set on a 100-hour time lock, and can only be opened by members of the depository staff who must dial separate combinations.
Visitors are not allowed inside. It is so secure that the term “as safe as Fort Knox” has become a metaphor for safety and security.