Ashanti Board Appointments.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 2000

Further to the announcement made on 4 March 2000, Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited announces the appointment of the following additional non-executive directors of the Company with effect from 24 March 2000:

The Rt. Hon. The Baroness Chalker of Wallasey PC: A British national , age 57, has since 1997 been an independent adviser on Africa and development to a number of business concerns in Britain and Africa and to the World Bank. She is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Lynda, Baroness Chalker is the first woman advisory director of Unilever plc and NV. She is a non-executive director of the Freeplay Energy Group in South Africa, Capital Shopping Centres plc and Landell Mills Ltd, the overseas development consultants. Lady Chalker is the Chairman of an advisory company on development partnerships called Africa Matters Limited.

Lady Chalker is President of the Southern Africa Business Association, British Executive Services Overseas, Transparency International UK and Chairman of the Board of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She is a Honorary Vice President of the British Red Cross and a Trustee of the African Medical and Research Foundation, President of Intermediate Technology and Vice President of the West Africa Committee in the UK, and of WaterAid. She is a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society.

She has been a member of the Anglo-German Koenigswinter Conference since 1977. She was a visiting scholar to the United States in 1978 and led a political delegation to China in 1980. She is a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and a Governor and Council Member of the Ditchley Foundation.

In Britain, Lady Chalker was the Member of Parliament for Wallasey from 1974 to 1992. Until she entered Parliament, Lady Chalker worked for Kodak, Unilever, Shell Mex and BP Limited as a statistician and market researcher. She later co-ordinated all international financial research for Louis Harris International and advised Barclays Bank International on parliamentary matters. In 1976, she was appointed an Opposition spokesman on Social Services. She became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security from 1979 to1982, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Transport from in 1982/83 and later, Minister of State there from 1983 to 1986. From 1986 to 1997, Lady Chalker was Minister of State for Africa and the Commonwealth at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office ("FCO"). In 1987, she became a Privy Counsellor and in 1992 a Life Peer. In addition, she was also appointed Minister for Overseas Development from 1989 to 1997, when her responsibilities included overseas development world-wide as well as African and Commonwealth affairs.

Mr Tom Gibian: An American national, age 46 is a Managing Director of Emerging Markets Partnership ( "EMP"). He is also the Chief Operating Officer for the AIG African Infrastructure Fund, a private equity fund whose shareholders include the AIG Insurance Company, International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank and other financial institutions.

Mr Gibian joined EMP in 1995 as a Managing Director for EMP's Asian Funds. Prior to joining EMP, he was Executive Director and Co-Head of Structured Finance for the Asia-Pacific Region for Goldman Sachs (Asia) Limited from 1992 to 1995.

Residing in Hong Kong, Mr Gibian had senior responsibility for all of the firm's investment banking activities in Asia relating to infrastructure, including financial advisory, debt and equity transactions. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1987 as a Vice President, Public Finance. Prior to 1987, he was with Salomon Brothers from 1983 to 1987.

Throughout his career on Wall Street, Mr Gibian has been engaged in matters relating to private investment in regulated businesses including power, utilities and transportation and especially the independent power sector, where he was responsible for structuring innovative transactions.

Mr Gibian is on the Advisory Board of inQbiz Limited and serves as a Trustee to Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC. He holds a BA from the College of Wooster (Honours in History) and an MBA from the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania.

Ashanti has not received any other information to be disclosed under paragraph 16.4 of the Listing Rules of the London Stock Exchange.