Mining, galamsey, national wealth, and the fight over Ghana’s economic future
Summary
Ghana has become a much bigger gold story in a very short time. The Ghana Chamber of Mines reports that the country produced about 5.94 million ounces in 2025, up 23.41% from 2024 (GNA, 2026a). Bank of Ghana data show gold exports of roughly US$20 billion that year, almost double the US$10.3 billion recorded in 2024 (GoldBod, 2026).
Something else happened too. For the first time in more than a century, small-scale miners out-produced the large mines, about 3.11 million ounces against 2.83 million (GNA, 2026a). That opens real room for Ghanaian ownership. It also opens up regulatory, environmental and fiscal risk, and the IMF has put numbers on some of it. It cites an estimate of 229 tonnes of gold, worth US$11.4 billion, that went missing from official trade data between 2019 and 2024 (IMF, 2026a). It also reports that the Bank of Ghana’s gold purchase programme lost more than US$1.7 billion in 2025 (IMF, 2026a).
The government has responded with the Ghana Gold Board, a new royalty regime, a dedicated anti-galamsey task force and a rewrite of the mining law. Those steps show that officials know the old system wasn’t working. They don’t yet show that the new one will. Ghana’s best chance isn’t the gold under the ground. It’s whether the institutions managing that gold can be trusted to do it well.
Gold Has Changed the Economy
Gold now sits at the center of Ghana’s external accounts. Bank of Ghana figures show total exports of US$31.1 billion in 2025, up from US$19.1 billion the year before, with gold supplying about US$20 billion of that (GoldBod, 2026). The IMF says gold went from about a fifth of exports in 2021 to more than half (IMF, 2026a). Gross international reserves ended 2025 at US$13.8 billion, up from US$9.1 billion a year earlier (Ministry of Finance, 2026). That is the authorities’ measure. The IMF uses a narrower definition that excludes items such as oil funds and encumbered assets, and on that basis reserves were US$11.9 billion (IMF, 2026b). Either way, they nearly doubled.
It’s worth asking how much of this is Ghana getting better at mining and how much is Ghana getting lucky. The IMF credits a mix: more output, more gold flowing through official channels, and historically high gold prices (IMF, 2026a, 2026b). Those aren’t the same thing. A higher price lifts export earnings even if not one extra ounce is mined. A country that leans on prices stays exposed to the world gold market. A country that uses a price boom to build other industries and stronger institutions is better placed when prices fall. The IMF notes that gold and cocoa together make up about 80% of Ghana’s goods exports (IMF, 2026b).
Small-Scale Mining Overtakes the Big Mines
The Chamber of Mines figures show how fast the balance moved. Small-scale output rose from 1.90 million ounces in 2024 to 3.11 million in 2025, a jump of 63.82%. Large-scale output slipped from 2.92 million to 2.83 million ounces, and its share of national production fell from 60.6% to 47.6% (GNA, 2026a).
That shift has upsides. Small-scale mining supports rural jobs, gives Ghanaian entrepreneurs a stake and keeps more of the industry out of the hands of a few multinationals. But a few cautions are in order.
First, “recorded” is not the same as “new.” The IMF says part of the rise in gold exports reflects higher production linked to formalization, and that the central bank’s purchase programme gave output an extra push (IMF, 2026b). Some of that 63.82% is probably gold that used to leave the country unrecorded. The published data can’t cleanly separate the two.
Second, small-scale doesn’t automatically mean good. The IMF notes that the sector includes licensed, informal and illegal operations (IMF, 2026a). Galamsey, the illegal end of it, is tied to land degradation, water contamination, forest loss, smuggling and lost revenue.
Third, smuggling remains the big unknown. The IMF cites an estimate of 229 tonnes of gold, worth US$11.4 billion, missing from official trade data from 2019 to 2024, and says that in 2023 the gap between Ghana’s reported exports and the United Arab Emirates’ reported imports exceeded US$4 billion (IMF, 2026a). The same trade gap was reported by the Swiss group Swissaid in 2025 (Reuters, 2025). It’s worth remembering what this number is. It comes from comparing trade records between countries, and it’s an estimate, not an audited count. Even so, it points to the real task: controlling the whole chain from licensing and weighing to assaying, transport, tax and export paperwork.
Fourth, tax. The IMF points out that Ghana removed the 1.5% withholding tax on unprocessed precious minerals in 2025, leaving almost no fiscal revenue from small-scale gold, and that a 2% royalty on the sector began in March 2026 with unclear collections so far (IMF, 2026a, 2026b). In other words, Ghana is formalizing a sector that, for now, pays very little.
Galamsey Has a Price Tag
Illegal mining is often treated as an environmental story. It’s also a fiscal, health and farming story, and the costs can last for years after the miners leave.
A 2026 review in Scientific African looked at research published between 2014 and 2024 on water pollution from artisanal gold mining in Ghana. The reviewed studies report frequent breaches of World Health Organization drinking-water guidelines for mercury, cyanide, arsenic, lead and cadmium. They also report extremely high sediment loads in affected rivers, which have strained municipal treatment plants built for much cleaner water, and the review says conventional treatment processes are widely reported to struggle under these conditions (Amidu et al., 2026). The IMF makes the same point in fiscal terms: siltation and contamination raise costs for the Ghana Water Company, and the loss of farmland, including cocoa land, drags on growth (IMF, 2026a).
A 2025 study in Scientific Reports looked at an abandoned galamsey site at Ajamesu in the Ashanti Region, about 400 metres from the Offin River. The site had been left for six years and had grown back on its own. Even so, the cucumbers, soil and pit water tested at the site carried heavy metals, and the researchers found health risks, including cancer risk, especially for children (Mensah et al., 2025). The lesson for policy is simple: green cover doesn’t prove land is clean. Restoration needs to be tested in a lab, not judged by eye.
If this were a company, we’d call it an undisclosed liability. The mine reports its output and revenue, and the cleanup bill lands on someone else. Counting those costs early is cheaper than paying them later.
The Ghana Gold Board: Promising, Expensive, Still Unproven
Parliament passed the Ghana Gold Board Act in March 2025 (GoldBod, 2025). The IMF describes GoldBod as a state-owned enterprise with a monopsony on small-scale gold purchases, working through licensed aggregators and traders (IMF, 2026a, 2026b). By 2025 the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme absorbed virtually all small-scale production, buying and exporting about 104 tonnes of it for US$10.9 billion (IMF, 2026a). The case for the model is clear: more gold in the recorded economy, more foreign exchange and a stronger cedi.
The IMF also shows the bill. It estimates the programme lost more than US$1.7 billion in 2025, or 1.5% of GDP, which was 17% of the value of the doré gold the central bank sold. The loss came from fees paid to GoldBod, discounts to the exporters who bought the gold, and the gap between the foreign exchange bureau rate used to buy gold and the official reference rate. The IMF adds that some of this is an accounting effect rather than cash spent, but it still pushed the Bank of Ghana’s negative equity to 6.7% of GDP by the end of 2025 (IMF, 2026a). The IMF assigns those losses to the central bank’s programme, with GoldBod acting as the agent that bought the gold. Whichever way the blame is divided, the public pays.
Three more facts matter. One aggregator, Bawa-Rock, supplied more than 60% of the small-scale gold exported in 2025, which is a lot of eggs in one basket (IMF, 2026a). The programme moved from the central bank to GoldBod on 1 July 2026, with the government now carrying the costs; those costs fell from about 15% of gold purchased in 2025 to about 11% in the first quarter of 2026, against a target of 5% (IMF, 2026a, 2026b). And the IMF notes that Ghana’s mining revenue reporting is less transparent than its petroleum reporting, and is incomplete and fragmented (IMF, 2026a).
So how should GoldBod be judged? Not by export headlines alone. Useful measures would include:
- the share of small-scale output bought through fully documented channels
- the gap between recorded purchases and independently verified production
- gold exported compared with gold purchased and held in stock
- the price actually received against international benchmarks
- operating costs, fees and discounts
- taxes and royalties paid to the state
- foreign exchange actually brought into the financial system
- independent audit findings, and what was done about them
Some of this is already moving. GoldBod is expected to publish externally audited annual financial statements, with a mid-2027 target, and an external special audit of the purchase programme since its start was due to report in the third quarter of 2026 (IMF, 2026b). Those findings should be public. The test is whether Ghana ends up with more value than the system it replaced, after costs.
Royalties: A Bigger Share for Ghana, With Investor Nerves
The new royalty rules came into force on 10 March 2026. Large-scale gold and lithium now pay a sliding royalty of 5% to 12%, and small-scale gold pays a flat 2% (IMF, 2026b; ISD, 2026a). For gold the top rate applies once the price reaches US$4,500 an ounce, and gold was trading above US$5,000 when the rules took effect, so the top rate applied immediately. The old rate was a flat 5% (Reuters, 2026a). Parliament also cut the Growth and Sustainability Levy on gold mining companies from 3% back to 1% of gross production, to soften the combined hit (GNA, 2026b; IMF, 2026b).
The reaction was mixed. The United States, China and other governments objected, along with senior mining executives (Reuters, 2026a). The IMF isn’t an uncritical backer either. It notes the sliding scale departs from its earlier advice, which favored stable, mineral-specific royalties alongside profit-based taxes, though it expects the new system to add about 0.3% of GDP in revenue over the medium term (IMF, 2026b).
There’s a real tension here, and neither side should win it by default. A government that collects too little hands value to shareholders. One that changes the rules too often scares off the exploration and equipment spending that future production depends on. Mining takes years of upfront investment before any cash comes in, so investors care as much about whether the rules will hold as about the rate.
On that front, the government has committed to a new Extractive Industry Fiscal Regime Act, with IMF technical help, that would consolidate mining and petroleum fiscal rules in one place (IMF, 2026b). That could help, if it limits one-off deals and makes terms predictable.
The Mining Law Rewrite: Still in Motion
On 15 July 2026 the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources announced that Cabinet had approved a revised Minerals and Mining Bill and sent it to Parliament. The government’s description includes district mining committees as the entry point for licensing, a new medium-scale category, a single prospecting licence capped at five years, and a community development agreement attached to every lease (ISD, 2026a). He also said leases would be capped at 20 years, down from 30.
The story since then is messier. Reuters reported in October that the version of the bill published by Parliament set an initial lease of 15 years or the projected life of the mine, and that the government expected to replace it with a revised draft restoring the 20-year maximum. A mines ministry official said there had been a mistake in the document that went to Parliament (Reuters, 2026b; MiningMX, 2026). The Chamber of Mines said a stated policy of 20 years doesn’t change the bill until Parliament changes the text. The Chamber also said the minister’s power to require a special state share already exists in the 2006 Act, though the new bill raises penalties for non-compliance (MiningMX, 2026). As of this writing there is no sign the bill has passed. The details are still changing.
Several of the ideas are good on paper. Community agreements and early local involvement address real grievances. But decentralization only works when local bodies have the money, skills and independence to do the job. Without those, district committees could simply repeat the old problems at a smaller scale. The law needs public disclosure of licensing decisions, open community consultations, independent environmental assessments and penalties that are actually enforced. A licence should be a commitment to mine responsibly, not a way to sit on land.
Enforcement: Arrests Aren’t Reform
The government’s main enforcement tool is the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat, known as NAIMOS. As of early March 2026, it reported 94 excavators seized, nearly 3,000 changfan machines destroyed and 237 arrests, mostly of foreign nationals. It also said it was supervising reclamation of more than 800 acres in the Amansie area of the Ashanti Region (ISD, 2026b).
By 19 October, President Mahama said authorities had confiscated more than 8,200 items tied to illegal mining, including 135 excavators, and recovered nearly 200 firearms. He announced plans to put GH¢200 million in the 2027 Budget toward reclaiming 5,000 acres of land damaged by galamsey, starting in 2027, and put the total damage at about 12,000 acres (Graphic Online, 2026). Two details are worth keeping in mind. These are government-reported figures and plans, and the 2027 allocation was announced rather than yet legislated. And a 5,000-acre target covers about 42% of the damage the President himself estimates.
Seizing machines slows a site down. It doesn’t dismantle the financiers, equipment suppliers, gold buyers and political connections that make galamsey pay. If the profit stays high and the chance of serious punishment stays low, operators come back. Lasting enforcement has to follow the money: who owns the equipment, who finances it, who buys the gold and how it gets into legal export channels.
It also has to deal with why people do this. A farmer who has lost land to mining, or a young person with few jobs, may see cash from a pit as the only option. That doesn’t excuse the damage. But enforcement will only stick if legal mining pays better than illegal mining, and the illegal kind stops being profitable.
The Environmental Balance Sheet
Export receipts, output and tax collections tell only part of the story. A country can book billions in mineral exports while its forests, rivers and farmland lose value. A fuller accounting would set extraction against the cost of restoration, water treatment, health care, lost crops and damaged ecosystems. This matters in Ghana because many mining areas are also farming areas, so the loss of cocoa land or clean water is part of the mining economy, not a side issue. The IMF says as much, calling the environmental damage a persistent drag on farm productivity and long-term growth (IMF, 2026b).
On the legal side, the Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124) replaced the Environmental Protection Agency with a new Authority that has stronger enforcement powers (GNA, 2025). On the ground, a land reclamation project upstream of the Jimi Dam in the Ashanti Region (153 hectares) was launched on 14 October 2026, and Newmont has reclaimed nearly 800 acres of mined-out land (Graphic Online, 2026). Those are encouraging. But a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency has said there is limited evidence so far that the wider institutional reforms in Act 1124 are being carried out (Citi Newsroom, 2026). The way to settle that kind of disagreement is data: public baselines for river quality, mercury levels, forest cover, contaminated soil and restored land, checked by independent monitors. Operators should also post rehabilitation guarantees before they start, so taxpayers aren’t left with the bill.
What a Buffett-Style Investment Committee Would Ask
This section borrows a way of thinking, not anything Warren Buffett has said about Ghana. A committee using Buffett-style questions would look at five things.
Is there a durable advantage?
Yes. Ghana has the geology, the mining experience, the workforce and the export links. But resources alone don’t make an advantage. Institutions decide how much of the value stays home.
Is management competent and honest?
For a country, that means whether regulators and officials enforce the law, protect the public interest and keep conditions predictable. The record so far is mixed, which is why the IMF keeps calling for stronger safeguards at GoldBod and the central bank (IMF, 2026b).
Is the accounting transparent?
An investor wants to know how much gold is produced, who buys it, at what price, what taxes are paid and where the money goes. The IMF’s findings on smuggling and on incomplete mining revenue reporting show why this is the priority (IMF, 2026a).
How is the cash being used?
The government’s reserve plan aims for 15 months of import cover by 2028, mainly through domestic gold purchases. The IMF puts reserve adequacy at about six months, warns that much higher reserves carry real costs, and estimates that the cost of mopping up the extra liquidity would climb from about 1% of GDP in 2025 to about 3% (IMF, 2026a, 2026b). The question for Ghana is whether gold income turns into schools, power, health care, industry and lasting savings, or gets absorbed by running costs and quasi-fiscal programmes.
What liabilities are hiding?
The committee would want the contaminated water, abandoned pits, lost forest and restoration costs on the books, whether it’s looking at a company or a country.
Six Priorities
1. Make the gold supply chain transparent
GoldBod, the Minerals Commission, the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Bank of Ghana and other agencies should reconcile production, purchases, exports, prices, taxes and inventories in one system, with independent audits. The special audit of the purchase programme and GoldBod’s audited accounts should be published.
2. Make illegal mining unprofitable
Go after financiers, equipment suppliers, middlemen and buyers, not only the people at the pit.
3. Treat water as a national asset
Tie permits to water-quality standards, independent monitoring and enforceable restoration duties, and give affected communities reliable information.
4. Keep investment rules predictable
Ghana should capture a fair share of mineral wealth without changing licensing, tax and community terms so often that long-term investors walk away. Settling the lease-term question in the mining bill is one place to start.
5. Turn mineral income into productive assets
Set aside a defined share of mineral receipts for infrastructure, skills, farming, industry and long-term savings, and judge projects by measurable returns.
6. Formalize responsible small-scale mining
Licensed operators need safer equipment, training, legal buyers, financing and mercury-free processing. Formalization has to be a better deal than galamsey, and it should reduce reliance on a single aggregator.
Outlook
Ghana has shown it can raise recorded output and export earnings. It has built new institutions, stepped up enforcement and started rewriting its mining laws and fiscal rules. The harder part is next: getting the laws passed, getting GoldBod’s costs and governance under control, getting enforcement results that last and getting restoration work verified independently.
The risks are mostly outside Ghana’s control. Gold prices can fall. The IMF’s stress test models a 30% drop from about US$4,151 an ounce at the end of 2025. In that case the cedi weakens, inflation rises and the Bank of Ghana’s return to positive equity is delayed by up to about a year, depending on how much of its reserves are held in gold, while the banking system as a whole holds up, with weaker domestic private banks the most exposed (IMF, 2026a). A strong cedi can also squeeze exporters outside gold (IMF, 2026b). Higher royalties will change which projects get built. Infrastructure gaps and community opposition can still delay investment.
Ghana shouldn’t plan its budget as if today’s gold revenue will last. A sensible plan uses the good years to build productive capacity and financial buffers.
Conclusion: Gold Production Isn’t the Same as Wealth
Ghana is at a turning point. The production and export numbers show how much its gold is worth. The galamsey crisis, the leakage of revenue, the cost of the purchase programme and the unfinished state of the mining law show how easily that wealth can turn into a liability if the institutions around it are weak.
Wealth comes when mineral income is collected fairly, spent well and turned into things that last. Ghana doesn’t have to choose between foreign investment and protecting its citizens, or between small-scale and large-scale mining, or between gold exports and its rivers and farmland. It needs rules that let all of these coexist, enforced in the open.
The measure of Ghana’s golden decade won’t be the ounces it exports. It will be what those ounces leave behind for the people who live there.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much gold did Ghana produce in 2025?
About 5.94 million ounces, up 23.41% from 2024, according to the Ghana Chamber of Mines. Gold exports reached roughly US$20 billion in 2025, almost double the US$10.3 billion recorded in 2024.
Did small-scale miners out-produce Ghana’s large mines in 2025?
Yes. For the first time in more than a century, small-scale miners produced about 3.11 million ounces against 2.83 million ounces from large-scale mines. Part of that rise reflects gold flowing through official channels after formalization, not just new production.
How much gold has been smuggled out of Ghana?
The IMF cites an estimate of 229 tonnes of gold, worth US$11.4 billion, missing from official trade data between 2019 and 2024. In 2023 alone, the gap between Ghana’s reported exports and the UAE’s reported imports exceeded US$4 billion. This is an estimate from trade-data comparison, not an audited count.
What is the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod)?
GoldBod is a state-owned enterprise, established by an act passed in March 2025, with a monopsony on small-scale gold purchases in Ghana, working through licensed aggregators and traders. The IMF estimates the related central bank purchase programme lost more than US$1.7 billion in 2025, about 1.5% of GDP.
What are Ghana’s new gold royalty rates?
Since 10 March 2026, large-scale gold and lithium pay a sliding royalty of 5% to 12%, and small-scale gold pays a flat 2%. The top rate applies once gold reaches US$4,500 an ounce, so it applied immediately. The previous rate was a flat 5%.
References
- Amidu, H., Annan, E., Kiti, J., & Tahiru, A. S. (2026). Water pollution and treatment challenges from artisanal gold mining in Ghana: A decade review (2014–2024). Scientific African, 32, Article e03413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2026.e03413
- Citi Newsroom. (2026, July). Environmental governance not a luxury to be pursued after economic recovery: Dr Krugu. citinewsroom.com
- Ghana Gold Board. (2025, March 29). Ghana Gold Board Bill 2025 passed into law. goldbod.gov.gh
- Ghana Gold Board. (2026, January 28). Ghana records US$20bn in gold export earnings in 2025; more than double 2024 level. goldbod.gov.gh
- Ghana News Agency. (2025, September). EP Act empowers Ghana to confront environmental risks: Minister. gna.org.gh
- Ghana News Agency. (2026a, June 8). Ghana’s gold output surges 23 per cent to nearly 6m ounces in 2025. gna.org.gh
- Ghana News Agency. (2026b, March 14). Parliament passes Growth and Sustainability Levy. gna.org.gh
- Graphic Online. (2026, October 19). GH¢400million to be allocated for reclamation of galamsey destroyed lands, EPA and Blue Water Guards in 2027 budget: President Mahama. graphic.com.gh
- Information Services Department. (2026a, July). Cabinet approves review of Minerals and Mining Act, sends bill to Parliament. Government of Ghana. isd.gov.gh
- Information Services Department. (2026b, March 26). NAIMOS intensifies crackdown on illegal mining across Ghana. Government of Ghana. isd.gov.gh
- International Monetary Fund. (2026a). Ghana: Selected issues (IMF Country Report No. 26/213). imf.org
- International Monetary Fund. (2026b). Ghana: 2026 Article IV consultation, sixth review under the arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility… (IMF Country Report No. 26/212). imf.org (PDF)
- Mensah, J. P., Oduro-Kwarteng, S., Miezah, K., Boakye, P., & Koomson, B. (2025). Health risks from persistent heavy metal contamination in crops and water at an abandoned naturally revegetated galamsey site in Ghana. Scientific Reports, 15, Article 34377. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-17149-0
- MiningMX. (2026, October 9). Ghana retreats on mining lease cap after backlash. miningmx.com
- Ministry of Finance, Ghana. (2026, March). Flash data report (Vol. 3). mofep.gov.gh (PDF)
- Reuters. (2025, June 16). Ghana lost $11 billion to gold smuggling, links to UAE, report finds. Kitco. kitco.com
- Reuters. (2026a, March 9). Ghana to introduce new gold royalty regime on Tuesday despite opposition, regulator says. Mining Weekly. miningweekly.com
- Reuters. (2026b, October 9). Ghana to replace draft mining bill with revised version, sources say. Mining Weekly. miningweekly.com
Research and Interpretation Note
This article separates reported production and export figures from estimates of illegal activity, government announcements, proposed legislation and independent scientific findings. The 229-tonne smuggling figure is an estimate drawn from trade-data gaps, not an audited count. Enforcement and reclamation numbers, and the planned 2027 reclamation spending, come from government statements and haven’t been independently verified. The mining bill is not law: Cabinet approved a revised version in July 2026, but the draft published by Parliament carried a 15-year initial lease, and a replacement draft had been reported as forthcoming at the time of writing. Reserve figures differ by definition (US$13.8 billion by the authorities’ measure, US$11.9 billion by the IMF’s). Export totals differ slightly across Bank of Ghana and Ghana Statistical Service releases, and this article uses the Bank of Ghana figures.