By Magdalene Andoh
A new independent economic assessment has credited the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) with significantly curbing gold smuggling and restoring state oversight in a sector long plagued by leakages, bringing an estimated 39.4 metric tonnes of gold into Ghana’s formal economy in 2025 alone.
The findings are contained in a technical report titled “Evaluating the Macroeconomic Effects of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod)”, presented to GoldBod by economists from the University of Ghana and the University of Ghana Business School. The report was authored by Prof. Festus Ebo Turkson, Peter Junior Dotse, and Prof. Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako, and dated January 4, 2026.
According to the report, recorded artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) gold exports increased sharply from 63.6 tonnes in 2024 to 103.0 tonnes in 2025. The additional 39.4 tonnes, the authors note, are plausibly gold that was previously smuggled out of the country but has now been captured through GoldBod’s formal purchasing and export framework.
At a conservative valuation of US$96.5 million per tonne, the formalised gold represents approximately US$3.8 billion in new foreign exchange inflows, strengthening Ghana’s external position and improving transparency in the gold trade.
Closing the Smuggling Gap
For years, illegal gold smuggling drained foreign exchange from the economy, weakened reserve buffers, and undermined state control over the mining value chain. The report argues that GoldBod’s pricing strategy—paying competitive rates to local producers—has removed the incentive to divert gold through informal and cross-border channels.
By aligning domestic gold prices more closely with international market rates, GoldBod effectively redirected supply into the formal system, allowing the state to track volumes, improve compliance, and secure foreign exchange that previously bypassed official channels.
Oversight Restored, Confidence Improved
Beyond the volume gains, the report highlights GoldBod’s role in re-establishing state oversight over artisanal mining exports. Formalisation has improved data quality, strengthened regulatory supervision, and enhanced confidence in Ghana’s gold export statistics.
The economists note that the benefits of formalisation far exceed the reported US$214 million Bank of Ghana trading loss, yielding a benefit–cost ratio of approximately 18 to 1. In practical terms, formalising just 2.2 tonnes of gold would have been enough to offset the reported loss.
Macroeconomic Payoffs
The inflow of formal gold exports contributed to higher international reserves, estimated at US$11–12 billion, helped stabilise the exchange rate, reduced the domestic cost of external debt servicing, and eased inflationary pressures through lower exchange-rate pass-through.
GoldBod-enabled ASM exports totalled US$10.8 billion in 2025, providing Ghana with a major source of non-debt foreign exchange and reducing reliance on costly external borrowing.
A Policy Tool, Not a Trading Firm
The report cautions against judging GoldBod purely on short-term trading outcomes. Instead, it urges policymakers to view the institution as a macro-economic stabilisation and formalisation tool, designed to convert illicit gold flows into formal foreign exchange and strengthen economic resilience.
The authors recommend sustaining price competitiveness to prevent a return of smuggling, strengthening governance and oversight, and clearly separating accounting effects from real economic costs in official reporting.
Based on the evidence, the report concludes that GoldBod has played a decisive role in moving Ghana’s gold trade from smuggling to stability, delivering measurable gains for the economy while restoring state control over a critical export sector.
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Source:
www.gbcghanaonline.com