The Ghana Gold Board (Goldbod) is the anchor of Mahama’s “new galamsey order.”
Its mandate goes beyond regulating Ghana’s gold production: it is both a revenue-harnessing mechanism and a national reclamation fund.
The idea is simple but profound—use proceeds from gold to heal the wounds it has inflicted.
Funds are to be directed toward dredging polluted rivers such as the Pra, Ankobra and Offin, and toward rebuilding communities whose livelihoods have been shattered.
A government audit revealed that many licensed small-scale miners were exploiting loopholes and operating no differently from galamsey groups.
In response, Mahama’s government outlined a twofold strategy: stop illegal encroachments and restructure small-scale mining by securing legitimate concessions from multinational companies under stricter monitoring and accountability.
With this framework, the Gold Board could register, tax and monitor artisanal miners—reducing smuggling, curbing abuse, and channelling resources into recovery.
Its mission is not merely revenue collection, but restoring ecosystems, resettling affected communities, and ensuring Ghana’s gold wealth no longer comes at the expense of its survival.
How legitimate are criticisms of the Gold Board?
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and sections of the media often dismiss the Gold Board, questioning its ability to distinguish legal gold from illegal gold—as if every nugget or bar comes neatly stamped with a certificate of origin.
Their conclusion is blunt: the Gold Board is complicit in illegality.
This criticism, however, misses the bigger picture.
The creation of the Gold Board does not mean the government has abandoned its clampdown on galamsey.
Enforcement remains ongoing—and that is the critical pillar in Ghana’s fight against illegal mining.
Consider the reality: about 80 per cent of those arrested for galamsey are foreigners, many caught with raw gold.
Some are deported; others are prosecuted.
But the seized gold raises a dilemma: should it be destroyed, buried, left to rot—or worse, smuggled across borders?
Government’s approach has been pragmatic.
Through the Gold Board, seized gold is consolidated with supplies from licensed small-scale miners.
The aim is not to reward illegality, but to prevent waste and redirect value into the formal economy—where proceeds can fund land reclamation, river dredging, and reforms in the mining sector.
Lessons from Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel
History offers a striking parallel. In the 1980s, when U.S. and Colombian authorities dismantled Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, they didn’t burn his mansions or destroy his assets.
Instead, properties and funds were confiscated under U.S. civil forfeiture laws, transferred to federal custodians, and later sold.
The proceeds financed anti-drug enforcement, supported investigations, and in some cases, aided community programmes. Escobar’s assets reentered the legal market under state control—with their value repurposed to fight the very menace that produced them.
The lesson is clear: governments rarely destroy seized assets.
They redirect them to repair damage and fund solutions.
By the same logic, the GoldBoard’s mandate—to consolidate gold seized from illegal operators alongside that from legitimate miners—provides Ghana with a financial base to heal environmental wounds, support affected communities and strengthen regulation.
State of Emergency:
A False Cure for Galamsey?
Following the President’s media encounter, some have strengthened the call for a state of emergency in galamsey-affected areas—an idea that resurfaces whenever the crisis intensifies.
On the surface, it sounds decisive. In reality, it offers only a short-term fix.
A state of emergency would suspend normal rights in those areas: restricting movement, imposing curfews, permitting warrantless searches, and placing communities under constant surveillance.
This might create the illusion of control, but serious questions arise: How long could such measures last?
Should they endure the decades-long fight against galamsey? And what happens once they are lifted?
History warns us. In places such as Bawku, emergency declarations and military deployments have failed to deliver lasting peace.
The same applies here.
What is needed is not an extraordinary suspension of rights, but a deliberate strategy: strong enforcement insulated from politics, sustainable funding for reclamation, and community-centred alternatives that restore livelihoods.
Anything less is merely treating symptoms while the disease spreads underground.
That, perhaps, explains the President’s new approach—anchored in shared responsibility, pursued within the law, enforced with firmness where necessary, and above all, guided by moral responsibility.
