Last Wednesday, 26 March 2025, the acting managing director of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) Limited, Sammy Gyamfi, addressed scores of small-scale miners at a stakeholder consultation meeting held in the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga.
The small-scale miners were among a host of stakeholders that also included traditional authorities, officials of state agencies, representatives of civil society organisations and members of youth-centred unions.
The meeting was meant to discuss the objectives and functions of the Ghana Gold Board, a newly established state-owned corporation otherwise called GoldBod for short.
The small-scale miners attended the function, many of them already aware it was about a new policy the new government had initiated.
But they were anxious because, before they got the invitation for the programme, they also already knew there had been calls from a section of the public on the government to ban small-scale mining owing to the destruction being done particularly to the country’s water bodies and forest reserves through illegal mining.
Some felt that even if the government would not ban it, it might introduce a course of action that would restrict small-scale mining in any form.
Whatever the case might be, they had fears that the new government had some bad news to break and they thought that the consultation meeting was a platform the PMMC, the host of the event, had chosen to politely convey the news.
But when Sammy Gyamfi took the floor after a number of speakers including a member of the GoldBod technical committee, Dr. Abdul Baasit Aziz Bamba, had made some presentations on the theme for the meeting, he made 6 announcements that changed the small-scale miners’ fear into feast, their despair into dinner and their apprehension into applause.
His 36-minute speech was punctuated by ovation as he delivered the following statements inside a packed conference hall of the Akayet Hotel:
1. We won’t ban small-scale mining
The acting MD of the PMMC affirmed that the new government would not ban small-scale mining.
He said those calling for a total ban were in error because such a move would unfairly affect legal miners and deny the country the needed revenue from the small-scale mining sector.
“Those who call for a blanket ban of small-scale mining are wrong because there are those who are doing the mining responsibly. And there are those who are doing it irresponsibly. You can’t put all of them together and punish all of them and ban it. When you do that, it will not fix the problem. It will only deny the country of the revenue we need for growth.
“Once upon a time in 2017 there was a government that came and they decided to ban small-scale mining. They banned it till the end of 2018. Please, did that address the problem of illegal mining? No. And, so, merely banning it will not solve it. We have to go after those doing it illegally and for those who have the intention to do it lawfully, support them, make it easy for them to get licences and give them the needed training and support so that they can do it responsibly,” he stated.
He stressed: “The first thing I want to tell you is that John Mahama says he is not going to ban small-scale mining. We are not going to do it. But we are going to fight those who are hell-bent on destroying our water bodies and forest reserves.”
2. We’re going to decentralise licence acquisition process for small-scale miners
The first announcement drew instant cheers from the audience and as the applause faded out, he also said the government was going to support small-scale miners by bringing issuance and renewal of mining licences to their doorsteps.
“We are going to support those who want to do mining legally and responsibly. How? President Mahama has made it clear that he wants to decentralise the licensing process. We are going to stop the centralisation of small-scale licensing in Accra. We want to bring the licence application and issuance to every district to make it easy.
“So, very soon the Minerals Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources will work on that— where you can go to the district office, you will see the Minerals Commission, you can apply, it doesn’t have to go to Accra, you don’t have to pay a bribe and you don’t have to wait for one year or two years. You get your licence and you go and do your legal mining,” he said, the audience reacting with another burst of applause.
3. We’ll create special areas for small-scale mining
Sammy Gyamfi further announced in the midst of that ovation that the government also would demarcate some areas particularly for legal small-scale miners so they could have more concessions to do business.
“Another support John Mahama is ready to provide through the Minerals Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is to make sure that we zone and dedicate special areas as concessions for small-scale miners, especially in this part of the country, so that you can get a lot of concessions if you have the licence to do legal, responsible mining.
“Government has given GoldBod money in the budget— I’m sure you heard it— a cedi equivalent of $279million to buy at least 3 tonnes of gold every week. So, now the government itself is going to buy the gold through GoldBod. So, we have enough money. And if the gold we produce in Ghana from small-scale is more than 3 tonnes, no problem. We would take cedis from the banks and from the oil importers and we would add it to the money to buy all the gold. So, you would not have a problem; you would not be holding gold without a buyer who has money to buy,” he stated.
4. We’ll buy machines for licensed small-scale miners
The PMMC’s acting managing director also revealed that the government would purchase machines for legal small-scale miners to ease both their search for gold deposits and gold production.
“Another support that President Mahama will provide legal small-scale miners— this one not through the Minerals Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources but through the GoldBod— is what Dr. Bassit spoke about. We know that most of you have concessions but you don’t have enough money to buy enough equipment to produce the ore. Today, if you want to do hard rock, you need drilling machines.
“In fact, you need machines for prospecting so that you don’t do the mining like lotto, you don’t do trial and error, you don’t do lottery mining in today’s age. If you have the right prospecting machine, you would know where the real ore is and, so, you wouldn’t have to destroy the land before you get the gold,” he said.
Continuing, he stated: “You need those machines— the drilling machines, the excavators, the processing plants which don’t use mercury but the gold catchers, the groundbreakers which just use water and yet can give over 90% recovery. These are the machines John Mahama wants the GoldBod to buy for licensed, responsible miners.”
5. We’ll organise training programmes for small-scale miners
The government, according to him, is also set to train small-scale miners on new technology and best practices in mining.
“Training, capacity building are the things John Mahama wants us to do— GoldBod, Minerals Commission, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources— to support legal, responsible miners, whilst we wage a ruthless war against the miscreants who don’t want to change,” he disclosed.
6. Your sins are forgiven
Sammy Gyamfi also went on to assure persons involved in illegal mining activities in the past that the new government had forgiven their environmental transgressions. But he told such individuals ‘to go and sin no more’ by applying to the Minerals Commission for a licence to do legal and responsible mining.
“If you are here doing illegal mining, even in tax administration there are times that the GRA (Ghana Revenue Authority) gives tax amnesty and forgives people who have not paid their taxes and gives them an opportunity to go and remedy that. So, John Mahama is giving you an opportunity.
“Your sins have been forgiven. You all have amnesty. When you hear that the Minerals Commission is issuing licences at the district level, go and apply for a licence and you will be given a licence under the government of John Mahama so that you can do legal mining, responsible mining, and the relevant agencies can regulate you,” he said.
Purpose of GoldBod
GoldBod was initiated by the Mahama administration to help put an end to the billions of cedis Ghana is losing every year through gold smuggling, the black market, chaos in the gold-purchasing sector, low royalty payment and tax evasion.
In 2022 alone, 60 tonnes of gold worth $1.2 billion were smuggled out of Ghana from small-scale mining, according to Ghana’s minister of finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson.
Again, in 2024, Ghana exported an amount of gold worth almost $5billion from legal small-scale mining. But the value of gold smuggled out of the country from small-scale mining in that year alone was almost $10 billion.
Ghana is also not realising the full benefit of its gold resources because the PMMC is not the only agency that has the mandate to purchase gold. Other entities like the Bank of Ghana and the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) have a similar mandate.
Some private aggregators as well as Ghanaians and foreigners with export licences purchase gold, too, under such initiatives as “gold for forex,” “gold for reserves”, “gold for oil” and “gold for cash” among others.
The gold-purchasing system lacks coordination and this disarray has encouraged the gold-smuggling business and the gold black market to flourish. This is taking a heavy toll on the economy and it is a major reason Ghana’s currency, the cedi, is dropping drastically in value against the dollar.
The Mahama administration established GoldBod as part of a broader agenda to revive and reset the economy. As a state agency, GoldBod has the mandate to take over the gold-purchasing system, to regulate and to restructure it. It will function as the sole buyer of gold from legal small-scale miners through licensed aggregators and local traders.
To give it the necessary legal backing to operate, a proposal called the “GoldBod Bill” was laid before Parliament and was approved last week. With that parliamentary approval, the agency now has the legal rights as the sole assayer, seller and exporter of the mineral resource purchased from small-scale miners.
It will not take over the regulatory mandate of the Minerals Commission over the small-scale mining sector. But it will replace the PMMC as an enhanced version and operate with subsidiaries including a national security taskforce whose duty is to help curtail gold smuggling and get rid of the gold black market.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
