The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has pointed to decades of policy failure and inadequate state support as the primary drivers behind Ghana’s persistent illegal mining crisis, popularly known as galamsey.
According to him, while Ghana officially began formalising the artisanal and small-scale mining sector in 1989, successive governments failed to provide the necessary training, equipment, and environmental safeguards to make the practice sustainable.
He was speaking during a widely followed Space conversation on X on Sunday, August 9.
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His comments come at a time when the nation is intensifying the fight against illegal mining, with stakeholders calling for a holistic approach to end the environmental destruction caused by unregulated operations.
Little support for small-scale miners
Mr. Gyamfi criticized the historical approach to small-scale mining regulation, stating that formalization was never paired with the operational support required to transition miners away from destructive methods.
“Very little was done to provide formalisation support, training, capacity building, and investing in reclamation,” Mr. Gyamfi stated during the broadcast.
He noted that without access to modern equipment and reclamation techniques, many miners resort to crude, environmentally hazardous practices to extract gold. He emphasized that the state’s failure to invest in sustainable mining capacity has directly contributed to the expansion of illegal mining, which continues to devastate water bodies and forest reserves across the country.
Beyond the lack of logistical support, the GoldBod CEO highlighted the structural issues within the domestic gold-buying ecosystem. He argued that the dominance of private operators in the gold-buying sector makes it nearly impossible for the state to effectively track the origin of the gold being purchased.
This lack of a transparent framework, he explained, allows illegally mined gold to enter the legitimate supply chain undetected.
Mr. Gyamfi questioned the efficacy of the previous administration’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), which was introduced in 2021 to bolster the Bank of Ghana’s reserves and support the Gold for Oil policy.
“When government decided to go into gold purchases in 2021 under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, they were doing gold for oil, they were doing gold for reserves, they were doing gold for forex,” he noted.
However, he posed a critical question regarding the integrity of those purchases:
“But did you ever hear there was traceability under the ex-government? Did you ever hear an effort, even an effort to ensure that the gold they were buying for oil, gold for reserve, gold for forex was traceable?”
Geofencing and equipment registration
To effectively curb illegal mining, Mr. Gyamfi argued that Ghana must urgently establish comprehensive systems to register and monitor mining equipment. He called for the introduction of geofencing technology to create virtual boundaries around licensed mining concessions, ensuring that operations stay within legal limits.
He lamented that the absence of a robust traceability framework has left the government in the dark regarding whether the gold it purchases is sourced from licensed operations or from environmentally destructive illegal activities.
Without accurate data on the origin of gold, he warned, the state inadvertently finances the very illegal mining operations it seeks to eradicate.
The GoldBod CEO’s critique signals a potential shift in strategy under the current government. The establishment of the Ghana Gold Board is viewed by many as the state’s attempt to reclaim control over the sector, centralize gold purchases, and introduce the transparency mechanisms that Mr. Gyamfi insists are lacking.
Industry experts suggest that by addressing the “formalization gap” and implementing strict traceability protocols, Ghana can not only reduce illegal mining but also unlock the full economic potential of its gold sector in a sustainable manner.
Myjoyonline