Once again this writer wishes to emphasize that Small Scale Mining is globally acknowledged as a poverty driven phenomenon, with the miners with the mindset that the gold or salt in Bogoso or Ada Songhor Lagoon respectively, is a gift from God for them to escape from their poverty miseries, so with this mindset it cannot be eradicated. Though a necessary evil for poverty alleviation, it should be managed effectively since the Negative Impacts of Small Scale Gold Mining far outweigh the benefits, So, GoldBod to watch out with acts to prop the Cedis.
It should not be prompted at all due to its characteristics especially nomadic in character by chasing the gold vein, hence irresponsible mining is the order of the day. But since it has come to stay like prostitution, it only requires a win-win solution as in the Small Scale Gold Mining Law 1989 (PNDCL laws 218,) PMMC (PNDL law 219 etc. Also no use of explosives, mercury nor cyanide, indication of NO Go Areas, through effective regulations, monitoring and enforcement, mindset revolution.
Furthermore, Alternative Livelihood Projects to reduce the associated risk to the barest minimum. Lastly navigating business tycoons as Licensed Small Scale Miners to a proposed Medium Scale Mining Sector for them to feel free to partner with foreigners. This is necessary, since mining is capital intensive. They should be made to comply with local and International Standards. So that Small Scale Mining is restricted to rural communities who are interested in Small Scale Mining to do so in a Community Mining Scheme with effective leadership with their own security system to control their activities and under watch by local District Security elements for corrective actions.
So Ghanaians especially, the Ghanaian Officials and media personnel need to reorient their mindset with the Resetting Agenda of President Mahama so as to see the realities on the ground and stop the daily cacophony that Galamasey an informal survival operations as illegal mining and cultivate a sober and critical thinking mindset. So that with critical thinking mindset on the underlying issues/Characteristics of Small Scale Mining, Ghana can do the right thing as recommended by this writer abode and Dr Tony Aubynn, Google and read ‘review the laws on Small Scale Mining’ by Dr Tony Aubyn.
So, Ghana’s main problem in the Mining Sector is due to bad Small Scale Mining law in the Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703) which failed to differentiate Artisanal Mining from Small Scale Mining. It must be noted that Act 703 which is the combination of all mining laws of the PNDC especially Minerals and Mining Law (PNDCLaw 153), Mercury law 1989 (PNDC Law217), Small Scale Gold Mining Law 1989 (PNDC218) etc into one with the resultant as Act 703 has caused and is causing an increased in illegal mining.
The intensification of the illegal mining activities was further heightened by the Minerals Commissions and the Parliament of Ghana in 2012 when the both committed an illegal act with a part of the Minerals and Mining Support Service Regulation 2012 (LI2174) which allowed Support Services by foreigners in the Small Scale Mining Sector which motivated Aisha Hauang (the Chinese Galamasey Queen) and her brothers or made Ghanaian to lure Chinese into the Small Scale Mining Sector. Google and read ‘Sweltering, Heat, Golden Dreams of Chinese Galamasey in Ghana’ as published in 2013. Google and read ‘Chinese involvement in Small Scale Mining in Ghana Professor Crawford’’ as published in 2013.
This subsidiary law LI2174 offended the parent law of Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703) especially the Small Scale Mining Law which restricted Small Scale Mining to only a citizen of Ghana, individually or a registered cooperative or Corporate Body, when it gave lucrative window or room for Ghanaians to front for/collaborate with foreigners in the Small Scale Mining Sector. The reason why the Chinese and other foreigners were/are motivated to bring thousands of excavators and Chafang machines into Ghana.
Google and read ‘Will Ghana ever learn? A letter to the Ghana and China Chamber of Commerce’ as published on the website of Modern Ghana on 23 July 2012 by Anna Hanson. Google and read ‘Old Photos and Videos of Self-confessed Amenfi Central PC who is in Galamasey pops up’ Google and read ‘We do not burn Wontumi’s Excavators by Hon Fuseini’. Google and read ‘Sweltering, Heat, Golden Dreams of Chinese Galamasey in Ghana’ as published in 2013. Google and read ‘Chinese involvement in Small Scale Mining in Ghana Professor Crawford’’ as published in 2013.
Another bad law was the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) Act 2013 (Act845) which did not make the Small Scale Mining Sector as NO GO AREA FOR FOREIGNERS as stipulated in the Small Scale Mining Law in Act 703.
This bad law of (Act845) together with a law enacted as an amendment to Act 703 in 2015, which condemned the Precious Minerals and Marketing Company as established by the PNDC to buy and export 100 percent of the gold from the Small Scale Mining Sector and gave the buying an exporting of gold from the Small Scale Mining Sector, are the two laws which gave the final kill to both the environment and the economics of Ghana (affected and is affecting cocoa farms/arable lands with an equipment that can cause massive destruction within a split of a second as well as smuggling of gold etc).
‘Google and read ‘How my Net worth reached 700 Million US Dollars by Keche Andrew’s wife namely, Joana Gyan’. Her Company was one of the over 70 Gold Export Companies provided by the Minerals Commission Ghana Chamber of Mines, Her company was not the number one Company in the export business, so if her story was true then you could guess that over 20 Billion US Dollars were made by the Private Gold Dealers working with foreigners. Why she did not talk of Cedis speaks volume of the state of affairs.
Consequently, in 2019 or so, this writer recommended for the establishment of Medium Scale Mining Sector for Ghanaian to feel free to partner with foreigners and a Minerals Board akin to COCOBOD to enjoy the monopoly in the purchase and exporting of gold from the Medium Scale Mining Sector and the Small Scale Mining Sector.
The mentioned bad laws gave birth to Gold for Oil (G4O) Initiative in 2022, which was gentleman agreement in gold trading in the Small Scale Mining Sector to help prop the Cedis by dealing with some of the Gold from the Small Scale Mining Sector as part of the Domestic Gold Purchase Program. The G4O, also gave birth to the GoldBod, unless a gentleman agreement, now with a law as GoldBod Law to take over 100 percent exporting of the Gold from the Small Scale Mining Sector, which is a necessary human evil like prostitution for survival. But with massive social and environmental repercussions, if not well regulated by win-win programs.
So, it was unfortunate that during a Summit on Mining in Motion held in June 2025, the CEO of GoldBod claimed that over 4billion US gold was obtained from the Artisanal Small Scale Mining (ASM) due to the centralized framework between February and May 2025. He claimed that 41.5 metric tonnes was the yielded gold from ASM. According to him, this export yield made the ASM to surpass the Large Scale Mining Companies for the said period. Google for ‘GoldBod Billion US Dollars breakthrough validates Mahama’s vision for mining sector’ by Lawyer Sammy Gyamfi. This assertion was echoed or confirmed by the Minister of Finance in the Mid-Year Budget Statement presented to Parliament in July 2025.
The CEO of GoldBod and the Minister for Finance, or Ghanaians must understand that Ghana’s total gold output equals to gold from Large Scale Mining Companies plus gold from Small Scale Miners, hence this includes gold from Artisanal Small Scale Miners alia Galamasey gold.
As stated GoldBod came and replaced Gold For Oil Initiative which was a gentleman agreement, since it was not backed by law for a Domestic Gold Purchase Program (DGPP) by Bank of Ghana (BOG) for gold from the Small Scale Mining Sector which included gold from Artisanal Miners The BOG did so by using Aggregators especially Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) to buy gold from Small Scale Miners and Asanska Jewellery Ltd for the gold from the Large Scale Mining Companies and on its behalf.
It should be noted that in the DGPP for the G40 program, on receipt of the gold, BOG then proceeded to liquidate the gold for the Gold For Oil Initiative into dollar to buy oil (fuel) through the G4O program in order to relieve the local oil market pressure that would have resulted when competing with commercial buyers for US dollars. So, due to legal environment that favour private companies as Bullion exporters, this was a very smart emergency program for all hands on deck to help to prop up the Cedis with gold from the then gold trading business portfolio in the Small Scale Mining Sector, which was backed by law passed in 2025, which precluded any act to the contrary that is not backed by law. But just a policy.
The gentleman agreement for the G4O program was to ensure win-win solution. Aimed at not to disturb seriously, the ongoing businesses of Ghanaians in legal export etc or not to antagonize the licensed Bullion Exporters, who together with Menzgold had their licenses in 2015 or in the first regime of President Mahama, through a bad law enacted in his regime that allowed foreigners to collaborate with their Ghanaian accomplices in the supply chain in the Small Scale Mining Sector.
So, for the exporters to buy in the Gold For Oil program and thus cooperate with the then Government of President Nana Addo, the payment of the gold was done in Cedi by paying GHC13,000.00 (765 US Dollars) per pound, almost close to the then World Price of 2,400.00 US Dollars per troy ounce or 31 kilogram (31Kg) of gold. Thus it was based on realistic or acceptable rate.
This is not the same as like the current GHC 8,000.00 (769US Dollars) per pound with spot price of gold at over 3,400.00 US Dollars per troy ounce or 31Kgm) as alleged by Chairman Wontumi. Google and Read ‘You cannot sit here and determine the price of gold, slams government over strict gold laws’ by Chairman Wontumi. So the difference lies with a new law that gave monopoly to GoldBod, and the prices used for buying in Cedis and selling in US Dollars. So local dealers were better off in the previous regime. So GoldBod must put a good measures to prevent smuggling or acts of corruptions by State Officials including paying redistrict rates and taking a percentage from Artisanal Miners for reclamation of mined out areas
The CEO of GoldBod’s and the Finance Minister’s proclamation that ASM is responsible for the better gold export is true. But they must be informed that ASM is a mining method with no or low levels of expenditure and with no or very low use of sophisticated technology or mechanization method by individuals or families etc thus it is subsistence level or livelihood project. It may be seasonal or partime job thus largely informal or illegal.
It is unfortunate that Ghana has mixed up Informal Artisanal mining alias Galamasey hence illegal mining with illegal mining by Licensed Small Scale Miners. Thus causing embarrassment to some Politicians like the CEO of GoldBod, as well as our Vice President who appreciate the situation of Artisanal Mining and want interventions by Government through Community or Cooperative Mining and navigating them to Alternative sustainable Livelihood Projects through skill training and getting them to invest their income elsewhere. Ask any honest and genuine Mining Expert and you will be told that artisanal Small Scale Mining is largely informal as such difficult to regulate since it is poverty driven. This assertion is always confirmed by the ILO, World Bank and Ghana Chamber of Mines.
This was the reason the current Vice President of Ghana namely Her Excellency VP Naana Opoku Agyeman meant when she was at Amenfi Central to campaign for votes in the 2024 Presidential Election and told the Galamasey Operators to vote for both the NDC ‘s Presidential and Parliamentary Candidates. Unfortunately, the absurdity created by Act 703 has made it very difficult to combat illegal mining, truly a marathon event. Since some officials and the media have confused the state of affairs by speaking Galamasey as illegal and not the use of excavators Chafang machines as illegal as deduced from the call for the Review of the Laws on Small Scale Mining by erudite Mining Scholars.
So what the CEO of GoldBod and the Finance Minister announced to the World that the gold exported by GoldBod was ASM gold was 100 percent right. Since illegal mining is on the increase and the gold produced must be or is sold out, and because the GoldBod has put up harshly scrutiny measures with the associated very high risk when caught hence people are dissuaded from illegal export since with the support of National Security’s angelic Anti-Smuggling Taskforce for Aggressive clamping down of gold smuggling through effective monitoring and with the use of effective aggregators system thus prevent smuggling. So the illegal produced gold is fed to GoldBod, through Small Scale Miners since no other market.
As such, combating illegal mining is a marathon event as said by the Sector Minister since the CEO of GoldBod and the Finance Minister need to be told that the gold produced from illegal mining/ Galamasey are fed to GoldBod through Small Scale Miners since GoldBod source of gold is from the Small Scale Mining Sector
Thus, as part of the building the Better Ghana Agenda, we need to grow up by calling a spade, a spade, so the CEO of the GoldBod and Minister of Finance should stop their Kejetia Market comparisons and understand that in Economics you need to apply the principle ceteris paribus in analysis of this kind. Hence, I do not think they want to tell the whole World that before the coming of the GoldBod, Gold produced from galamasey which equals to gold produced illegally was thus traded illegally or as gold exported illegally.
The GoldBod came with efficiency in regulating the trading of gold from the Small Scale Mining Sector, by assaying, buying from licensed buyers or aggregators, selling to Jewelries factories and Refineries for refining and solely responsible for exporting gold from the Small Scale Mining Sector. Hence, with the alleged aggressive posture by GoldBod against smuggling, so gold from illegal miners which cannot be smuggled out was /is fed to the GoldBod through the licensed Aggregators.
For success of the GoldBod with alleged aggressive posture to deal with smuggling, the ongoing activities of Galamasey operators and illegally gold producers and illegal gold traders therefore have to sell their gold to middlemen as Aggregators for them to sell the gold to GoldBod, since they cannot do so for due to operations of the Taskforce, lack of legal framework, infrastructure to export, thus the gold that was previously traded illegally must be sold to the GoldBod.
So Galamasey Gold produced illegally plus Gold that cannot be exported illegally has helped improved the Currency of Ghana unless GoldBod is telling us that the Galamasey/illegal miners gold produced was/is sneaked into Large Scale Mining Companies. CEO of GoldBod should note that some of the Licensed Scale Mining Companies are buying Galamasey and illegal miners tailings or spent or dumped or stockpile ore.
So, either the CEO of GoldBod or his boss the Minister of Finance were very honest with gold from Artisanal Small Scale Mining in English alias Galamasey in local parlance which is largely informal or illegal that helped to prop up the Cedis otherwise they both failed to understand that ASM is alien in the Mining Laws of Ghana.
As stated ASM is mining with no or low levels of expenditure and no or very low with sophisticated technology or mechanization by individuals or families etc thus it is subsistence level or livelihood project. Illegal mining is mining against the laws of Ghana governing mining. So until the total eradication of Galamasey and illegal mining, both gold from Galamasey operators and Illegal miners are feeding the GoldBod to help prop the Cedis. So, Human and environmental cost by Small Scale Miners far outweighs the benefits of Gold for GoldBod to prop the Cedis.
The technical flaw in our Small Scale Mining law was that it was not based on the history of mining and the reason why the PNDC legalized Artisanal Mining alias Galamasey into the Small Scale Gold Mining Law 1989 (PNDC Law 218) which is the first legal framework that legalized Galamasey or Artisanal mining into Small Scale Mining. Unlike the ambiguous Small Scale Mining Act 703 of 2006, the PNDC Law 218 of 1989 was very specific for recognition and for formalization of Galamasey as Small Scale Mining. The licensing regime initiated by the PNDC was meant to bring illegal operators and would be illegal operators to the legal framework or formal sector. This was clearly stated in the PNDC Law 218.
So the new law of Act 703, was not sensitive to relate to the situation on the ground that is the different types of mining activities on the ground as alluded by three erudite Mining Scholars namely Dr Tony Aubyn, Dr Gavin Hilson and Dr Abigail Hilson.
Act 703, failed to factor the socioeconomic conditions or dynamics of the rural folks in the mining sector by the poverty driven artisanal mining activities. It also failed to see to the need of helping Ghanaians to gain commanding heights in Mining, by allowing Ghanaian tycoons or city dwellers interested in accumulating wealth to do so solely or with the support of their foreign financiers, since mining is capital intensive.
The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, CEO of GoldBod and or his boss, the Minister of Finance otherwise President of Ghana, His Excellency President JD Mahama are hereby informed that the Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703) does not speak of ASM because it failed to recognize Artisanal mining, which is an unorganized /inconsiderate activity by over thousands of people men, women and children. ASM is therefore noted as irresponsible mining as practiced by rural folks for survival, which is the time-tested indigenous or traditional mining as inherited from our ancestors. This is one of the sources of the headache with illegal mining.
This so because Act 703 woefully failed to differentiate between Artisanal mining and mining with sophisticated technology and substantial expenditure in the Small Scale Mining Sector as indicated by Dr Tony Aubyn. It rather applies across the board and thus lumped together the interest of all subsets of miners including Artisanal Miners in the Universal Set of Small Scale Mining Sector.
By this absurdity, the bad law wants Artisanal Miners to meet the same bureaucratic procedures from seeking local permission up to the Sector Minister and thus pay huge sums not less than 10,000 US Dollars in obtaining the license from the Sector Minister, and the Sector Minister failing to appreciate the situation in the Mining Sector with the revoking of licenses with the excuse I was issued in December 202 but the last regime, hence the contributing factor for illegal mining. Thus the Sector Minister failed to note that the licensing regime was meant to bring illegal operators and would be illegal operators to the legal framework or formal sector for Reporting, monitoring, performance assessment, reclamation bond.
So it is the bureaucratic acts that are fueling illegal mining. He has forgetting the African culture of cohabitation, before obtaining marriage license or certificate, so the applicant is working on the holy area herein mining concession before getting his or her certificate.
This was the reason Dr Tony Aubyn in 2016, then as the CEO of the Minerals Commission recommended for the Review of the laws on Small Scale Mining so as to capture the interest of Artisanal Miners for easy acquisition of permits at the local mining governance level and Ghanaian tycoons to go through the bureaucratic route with huge payment to enable them to free to partner with foreigners as against fronting for them since mining is capital intensive. Google and read the ‘Review of the laws on Small Scale Mining by Dr Tony Aubyn’
This absurdity of the Small Scale Mining in Act 703 made two mining Scholars or Researchers namely Dr Gavin Hilson and Dr Abigail Hilson to conclude in their research work that there is very huge gap between what is true Small Scale Mining as is practiced on the ground and what the Ghanaian Authorities/Officials or Ghanaians in general understand or consider as Small Scale Mining. Thus with critical thinking mindset one may be right to say that the fear of both Dr Tony Aubyn and Dr Hilson was confirmed by the assertion of the CEO of GoldBod that the gold for propping the Cedis came from ASM. This was like the story that indicated that Ghana recorded high gold export sales when the one year ban between 2017 and 2018 was placed on Small Scale Mining by the Regime of President Nana Addo.
Thanks to Gold with the current Minister of Lands and Minerals Resources namely Hon Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah who must be commended and supported for the attempt to sanitize the Small Scale Mining Sector through signs of successful fight against irresponsible and illegal mining. His Measures include (a). Reforming the licensing regime through amendment of Act 703 and Minerals and mining policy 2014. (b). Firm protection and Reclaiming of nine critical forest reserves previously occupied by illegal miners under protection of armed guards put up measures thus putting measures to deny reoccupation by illegal miners, (c). Introduce Tree for life, as reforestation program to plant more than 30 million trees by the end of the year, (d). Blue Water Guards as part of the comprehensive environmental protections commitments for envroimental monitoring with community engagement for river protection and for educating local people on environmental conservation, (e). A plan for water restoration measures to return the rivers to their original condition (f). Minerals Commission GPS system for rear time Tracking of excavators within the Country and at the point of entry and impounding excavators to combat threats by excavators. (g) Good Alterntive Livelihood Projects including Responsible mining through Cooperative Mining Schemes.
