Why provenance is the whole question
Refiners and institutional buyers apply responsible-sourcing standards before they accept metal. Those standards cover where the gold came from, who handled it, whether the money behind it is clean, and whether the site met basic conditions on safety, child labour and conflict financing.
Metal that cannot answer those questions is difficult to place at a fair price, whatever its purity. Traceability is therefore commercial, not only ethical.
How we handle chain of custody
Teqwah buys from sites we operate on or source from directly, rather than through anonymous intermediaries. Each parcel is recorded at the point of purchase with its origin, weight and assay, and that record follows the parcel through refining and sale.
Counterparty and identity checks are carried out before a relationship starts, and settlement runs through documented channels so that the paper trail matches the metal.
Working with artisanal and small-scale producers
A large share of African production comes from small-scale miners. Cutting them out does not make a supply chain responsible; it pushes them towards buyers who ask nothing at all. Our approach is to buy directly, pay against assay rather than guesswork, and keep the record.
What we do not claim
Teqwah does not represent itself as accredited by, or a member of, any refiner association, exchange or standards body unless that status is documented. Where we describe a practice, we are describing our own process.