Ghana plans gold board to increase earnings and curb smuggling
Ghana plans to launch a Gold Board to streamline gold purchases from small-scale miners, increase earnings and reduce smuggling, the west African country's newly appointed finance minister Cassiel Ato Forson said on Monday.
The Gold Board will allow Africa's leading gold producer to increase its benefits from the precious metal's sales and help maintain the national currency's stability.
Data from Ghana's central bank showed that total gold exports for 2024 stood at $11.64-billion, a 53.2% year-on-year increase which helped nearly double Ghana's trade surplus to $4.98-billion in 2024.
The minister said nearly $5-billion worth of gold exported last year was from legal small-scale miners.
"The time has come for Ghana to expand beyond royalties and taxes by harnessing the entire value chain of gold ... from extraction to refinery, value addition and marketing, both locally and internationally," Forson said.
The board will be launched in early March, he added.
The gold programme will be implemented with the aim of pursuing the stringent London Bullion Market Association certification, which prohibits refiners from handling gold from sources contributing to human rights abuses, conflict, crime or environmental degradation.
"Currently, the chaos in the Ghana's gold purchasing sector prevents the nation from fully benefiting from its gold resources," Forson said.
The board will act as the sole buyer of gold through licence aggregators and local traders, shifting away from the system where Ghanaians and foreign companies with export licenses could purchase it without going through the approved rules.
"This fragmented, uncoordinated, and unregulated system has led to a widespread gold smuggling and deprived the state of much-needed foreign exchange," Forson said.
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