The cedi is back in business! (Do not ask why and do not say how)
Mahama’s gold monopoly is stabilising the economy by cannibalising the environment.
Delali Adogla-Bessa and Obrempong Yaw Ampofo in Tarkwa
Ghana’s gold trade – long a lucrative if chaotic business – changed seven months ago when President John Mahama’s government created GoldBod. This parastatal is now the only legal exporter of artisanally mined gold in the country.
In trading towns like Tarkwa in southwest Ghana, its impact has been immediate. “We can go a month without buying any gold here,” Lord Koomson* told The Continent. In the past, his business thrived in the old, unregulated system.
Koomson’s struggle proves a common suspicion: much of the unlicensed mining in Ghana, known as “galamsey” looked artisanal but was actually funded by organised foreign syndicates. “The Indians helped a lot of the buyers,” Koomson said. “But all of a sudden, the state said foreigners should not be involved in the gold trade, so they had to leave with their money.”
Without that funding, buyers like Komsoon who purchased gold from both illegal and illegal miners have struggled to stay afloat.
To ask or not to ask
Even though the GoldBod monopoly disrupted a part of that chain, transactions largely continue much as before. The Continent observed one such transaction: a miner brought in a few grams of a mercury-gold amalgam ball. It was heated to expel the mercury and weighed before price negotiations began.
No questions were asked about its source.
Buyers who want to remain eligible to sell to GoldBod must record the source of the gold, but compliance is uneven. Koomson admitted he often cuts corners when he’s desperate and that traders who ask questions only gain a bad reputation with their suppliers in the town. “When you bring the gold, I am supposed to note where the gold is coming from and the supplier’s national identification number but I sometimes make up the data,” he said.
Another Tarkwa buyer, Andy Boateng* keeps his business steady with his “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. “If I ask too many questions, suppliers won’t set foot in here again. Even if you steal gold, this is a gold-buying office. I am not going to investigate where you got it from,” he admitted. He’s just as indiscriminate with who he sells to. “I sell to anybody who brings money,” he told The Continent.
Even though it hasn’t eradicated illicit gold trade, GoldBod is delivering one major result: rescuing Ghana’s economy from freefall. The agency exported more than 81,000kg of gold from artisanal miners by the end of October, taking advantage of historically high gold prices. This earned the country $8-billion and stabilised the local currency. The Ghanaian cedi, which was ranked as the world’s worst-performing currency under the previous administration, has gained more than 20% against the dollar this year.
An ounce of gold sold for $1,400 more this year compared to 2024, driven by wealthy investors and central banks who are wary of lending money to the United States government and view gold as the safer option.
Ghana’s government is leaning into that boom and appears to have accepted the environmental ruin inherent in small-scale mining, at least in the short term. “It’s our land that is being destroyed, so let us get the benefit of it, instead of foreign traders,” Mahama said in September.
“It’s our land that is being destroyed, so let us get the benefit of it, instead of foreign traders.”
This trade-off alarms environmental activists like lawyer Awula Serwah, coordinator of the Eco-Conscious Citizens environmentalist group. “When you add everything up, it is not worth it at all,” Serwah said. “The health [costs] will far surpass whatever gains they have made from continuing with illegal mining.”
GoldBod insists that it is not buying from illegal miners. But as the traders in Tarkwa show, documents are easily falsified with no consequence. The agency promises stricter tracing controls, without offering details on exactly how this will be implemented. “Rest assured that every gram of gold will be traced,” Goldbod spokesperson Prince Minkah told The Continent.