Mahama shares Ghana GoldBod experience with Zambian Parliament

President John Dramani Mahama has shared Ghana’s experience with the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) with the Zambian National Assembly, highlighting its role in strengthening state control over gold exports and significantly boosting foreign exchange earnings.

President Mahama made the presentation on Thursday while addressing Zambia’s Parliament during a three-day State Visit to the country at the invitation of President Hakainde Hichilema. He was accompanied by the First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama.

The Ghana Gold Board is the sole state authority mandated to buy, sell, weigh, grade, assay, value and export gold and other precious minerals in Ghana.

Addressing lawmakers, President Mahama said Africa must move beyond rhetoric and take bold steps to leverage its natural resources to drive economic transformation and sustainable development.

He stressed the need for African countries to exercise greater sovereignty over their mineral resources to ensure that their citizens derive maximum benefit.

“The era of parceling out large-scale concessions to speculators who flip them for huge profits must end,” the President said.
“We have the know-how, the technology and the capital. Indigenous companies must be encouraged to participate meaningfully in the extractive sector.”

He noted that while Ghana, like Zambia, is richly endowed with minerals such as gold, bauxite and manganese, the continent had historically failed to add significant local value to its resources.

President Mahama said Ghana was reversing this trend with the establishment of the Ghana Gold Board in April last year to regulate and take control of gold exports.

According to him, gold exports from the artisanal and small-scale mining sector increased from 63 tonnes to 104 tonnes within 10 months of the Board’s establishment, generating more than US$10 billion in foreign exchange earnings over the same period.

“We are taking deliberate steps to domesticate value addition in the minerals sector,” he said.

He revealed that the Gold Board had signed an agreement with a local refinery to process about one tonne of gold per week, instead of exporting raw doré gold. Plans are also underway to begin local processing of manganese and bauxite.

President Mahama further announced that government had replaced the flat-rate mineral royalty system with a sliding scale of between five per cent and 12 per cent, based on prevailing international market prices.

GNA