GHANA HAS denied an allegation by La Cote d' Ivoire that the country has become a conduit for conflict diamonds in the ECOWAS sub Region.

This was in reference to alleged comments by Ivorian experts in that country that Ghana was being used as a conduit for conflict diamonds from rebels in that country, using the proceeds to fuel conflicts, civil wars and terrorism in Cote d'Ivoire.

The Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, Professor Dominic Fobih, assured all and sundry that Ghana, was policing against such conflicts diamonds and has therefore vow to ensure its elimination from the sub-Region.

The Minister was commenting on the alleged allegation at a sensitization workshop on the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) Act 652 of 2003 held Accra.

Explaining the KPCS Act, Mr. George Asante, Deputy Director of Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) said KPCS is an international diamond certification system, launched in January 2003 by governments, industries and civil societies, which require governments and the diamond industry to implement import/ exports, control regimes and internal systems of control on rough diamonds.

He said implementation and compliance of the KPC, is that all member countries were to enact national legislative instruments to back the process and issuing of national certificate to accompany rough diamond shipments and that, copies of the certificates with authorized signatures deposited with member country and KPCS secretariat now in Botswana.

He said, trans-shipment is designated authorities of member countries through whose territory a shipment is in transit, must ensure that the shipment of the sealed parcel leaves its territory in identical states as it entered its territory.

Giving the challenges facing the PMMC in its fulfillment of the KPCS demands, the Deputy Director said it is difficult in compiling accurate production records due to large army of middlemen in the trade from mine to market.

He stressed that there was the tendency of miners to cheat supervisors, concession owners and even authorities and the release of accurate information.

Mr. Asante added that production, mainly from artisanal miners with high mobility and virtually no records unlike the only large scale mine with accurate productions, were some of the problems militating against accurate information.

Presenting the overview of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (Acts 652, the Deputy Attorney General Mr.Kwame Osei Prempe, said a person who has been granted a license under the section 3 of the Minerals and Mining Law, 1986(PNDC Law 153), shall not export rough diamonds unless that person has applied for and has been issued a Kimberly process certificate by the Minister of Mines.

He said the Minister of Mines may, where all the information required to be given under section 2 is supplied, issue the certificate in respect of the rough diamonds to which the application relates, within three days from the date of submission of the application.

The Deputy Minister said, a person who is in breach of any provision of this act commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 500 penalty units or a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years or both with the diamond, the subject in conviction shall be forfeited to the state.

He said interpretation of this act requires "Harmonized System" that is the harmonized commodity description and coding systems set out in the customs tariff with the certificate in relation to the export of rough diamonds from Ghana.

Ghana is one of 10 signatories to the Kimberly Act.