When the acting managing director of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) Limited, Sammy Gyamfi, interacted with stakeholders recently at a consultation meeting in the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga, he did not only announce that the John Dramani Mahama administration would not ban small-scale mining in Ghana.
He also offered an explanation for why the new government would not yield to pressure to ban small-scale mining.
“As I speak to you there are people in Accra putting pressure on us to ban it. But the reason why we are saying we won’t do it is because gold is valuable. Small-scale miners are very important in the agenda of President Mahama to transform our economy and create prosperity for all.
“If we can go and sell all the gold abroad, we will get dollars. And if we bring all the dollars back, the cedi will become strong. This is the time for you to help the nation,” he stated as he began to explain.
He said things were expensive in the country owing to the scarcity of dollars and that the prices of goods and services kept rising on the Ghanaian markets as the dollar continued to shoot up.
“Today, when you want $1, black market says Gh¢16. Not too long ago, it was Gh¢15. It went to Gh¢15. 5. Now Gh¢16. You know why? It’s because there are no dollars. Those who want dollars to import things are not getting the dollars. And 90% of the things you and I buy, our wives buy, our children buy, we import all of them.
“So, if there are no dollars and the dollar keeps going up, we all suffer, because when you go to the market you’d see that a tin of milk the price is going up because the dollar is going up. Rice is going up because the dollar is going up. Everything is going up because the dollar is going up,” he said.
The consultation 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 event brought together small-scale miners, traditional authorities, members of civil society groups, officials of state agencies and representatives of youth-focused organisations among other stakeholders.
‘Small-scale miners can cause a change’— Gyamfi
Going further, the PMMC’s acting MD said small-scale miners had the power to change this situation simply by selling their gold to the government only, through GoldBod, for onward sale overseas.
Selling the gold on the international market, he affirmed, would earn enough dollars for Ghana and the prices of things in the country would drop.
“But if miners can give all their gold— don’t give it to the government for free; sell it to GoldBod on behalf of government— so that we can buy all the gold. And we will go and sell it on behalf of the people of Ghana abroad and we’ll get enough dollars.
“And we’ll bring the dollars back. If we can do that for six months, the dollar will move from Gh¢16 to Gh¢12. That is the power you have. But we are not using that power well,” he said.
Explaining how the Ghanaian small-scale miners were not using their “power” well, Gyamfi lamented they rather had been selling their gold to foreigners who ended up smuggling the gold to their countries with Ghana as the final victim.
“Everybody is buying gold. We are here and we sell our gold to people in Burkina Faso. We sell our gold to Indians, Chinese. They don’t pay tax. They don’t pay royalty. And they smuggle the gold to their country— India and China. They don’t bring the dollars back. And we think that we sold it to them and we have gotten money. No. You are not getting any money.
“We are not getting any money because we are cheating ourselves. If you cut your tongue and you chew your own tongue, have you chewed meat? You sold it to the Indian man. He took the gold to his country. He didn’t bring the dollars. They are doing well. But you will suffer because the dollar is in shortage and the dollar keeps going up,” he explained.
He added: “And, so, when you give your wife Gh¢100 to go to the market, you’d realise the Gh¢100 cannot do anything; she would be complaining. Are we all not feeling the consequences? We are all feeling it.”
PMMC mentions Ghanaian to whom small-scale miners should sell their gold
After providing the explanation, Gyamfi told the small-scale miners whom they should sell their gold to.
“So, the reason why we won’t ban small-scale mining— those who want to do it legally and responsibly, and we want to even support you by bringing the licensing regime to your doorstep at the district level, by giving you demarcated areas for mining, by giving you training, by giving you equipment— is so that you can produce a lot of gold responsibly without destroying the environment and when you produce the gold, don’t give it to an Indian man, don’t give to a Chinese, don’t give it to a Ghanaian who doesn’t have a licence, don’t give it to a Burkinabe.
“Give it to a Ghanaian who has been licensed by the Ghana Gold Board because that Ghanaian who has been licensed has been given money, taxpayer’s money, by the GoldBod to buy all the gold for the government so that the government would go and sell and bring all the dollars back. If you leave it to individuals without regulating them, they would go and sell; they don’t bring the dollars and you and I will suffer,” he said.
Wrapping up, he said the prices of things would go down in Ghana if the small-scale miners did as told and their names would be etched in the country’s history as the heroes who healed the ailing economy.
“So, if you want dollars to go down for Ghanaians to benefit, then give your gold to GoldBod. The dollar will go down, the price of petrol will go down, the price of diesel will go down, the price of rice will go down, the price of oil will go down.
“And when we ask: Who are the heroes who made this possible? Ghanaians would say: Small-scale miners. They gave their gold to GoldBod and helped the nation to get all these dollars. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? That is what we are trying to achieve. It’s as simple as that,” he stressed.
About GoldBod
GoldBod was initiated by the Mahama administration to help put an end to the billions of cedis Ghana is losing annually 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
