ECO-UK-GOLD-SALE
Brown accused over gold sales

LONDON, Jan 25 (KUNA) -- Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Secretary) Gordon Brown was accused in the House of Commons Thursday of losing the equivalent of over 4.5 billion dollars by selling gold assets when prices were low.

Britains main opposition Conservative MP David Heathcoat-Amory levelled the charge at Brown, branding the sell-off a "fiasco''.

He said the Chancellor of the Exchequer's "recklessness" and "incompetence" showed he was unfit for further office.

Brown said 395 tonnes of gold had been sold from the reserves between July 1999 and March 2002 realising 3.5 billion dollars in total.

The purpose was a restructuring of foreign currency and gold reserves aimed at achieving a "better balanced portfolio'' he told MPs.

"The sterling value of the gold sold has risen to 4.2 billion pounds ... and the independent National Audit Office concluded the sale achieved value for money", he added.

Heathcoat-Amory said "Since you obviously have great difficulty admitting the scale of this fiasco, will you confirm the Treasury's own figure that the average price obtained during these gold sales was 275 dollars an ounce and the price today is 642 dollars an ounce".

"That is a total loss to the Treasury of over 4.5 billion dollars", he pointed out.

"Since you were warned at the time about the recklessness of these sales, will you now agree that the depth of this fiasco and incompetence rules you out for further office?'' The Chancellor said one of the items bought by the Treasury with the gold proceeds was euros, which had gone up in value, as a "greater benefit'' to the Treasury.

Brown is expected to take over from British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he leaves office later this year.

[link to www.kuna.net.kw]