Mint reveals how it lost a fortune in gold

Mint reveals how it lost a fortune in gold

www.vancouversun.com

OTTAWA — More than $3 million in government gold was unwittingly sold off at a fraction of its value as refinery slag, while $8 million more was miscounted and never left the Royal Canadian Mint, the Crown corporation revealed Monday in a full accounting of how it lost track of a fortune in gold for a year.

(visit the link for the full news article)

A series of "miscalculations" and "Blunders" lost 44,400-ounce bars, worth more than $20 million in today’s prices.

I don't understand how this happens?
They either employ morons to manage morons or they wanted this to happen.

A series of miscalculations and blunders in the mint’s gold refinery dating back to 2005 were responsible for 17,500 troy ounces — a system of weights for precious metals — of gold going missing from the mint’s Ottawa inventory count last October, the mint announced in a 12-page report.

That’s the equivalent of almost 44,400-ounce bars, worth more than $20 million in today’s prices.

The mint said a 14-month hunt to find out what happened to the precious metal now “fully accounts” for the missing gold, though it admits almost 3,500 ounces unwittingly sold off in slag to U.S. re-refiners will never be recovered.

www.vancouversun.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 21/12/2009 by wycky]

What's the biggie? After all, they -

(1) learned a valuable lesson ...
“At the end of the day, we’ve learned a lot of lessons,” said Christine Aquino, mint spokeswoman.

and are

(2) disappointed in themselves ...
"I am disappointed that errors have occurred,” the minister of state for transport, Rob Merrifield, said in a news release.

So that's all okay, then.

[edit on 21-12-2009 by zenser]

So these American refiners are off scot-free? If I found a bag of money lying in the street, or a wallet with cash, I am supposedly obligated to find the owner, not just keep my mouth shut. They KNOW who got that gold, and they are just going to swallow their loss? If I were Canadian, I'd be pissed...