The formalisation of Ghana’s artisanal and small-scale gold sector under the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has provided significant fiscal relief by lowering the domestic-currency cost of external debt service and imports, a new technical report shows.
The analysis by Prof. Festus Ebo Turkson, Peter Junior Dotse, and Prof. Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako reveals that the cedi’s appreciation in 2025 reduced Ghana’s external debt service by approximately GHS 6.22 billion and cut the domestic import bill by about GHS 50.6 billion.
The report underscores the mechanism behind these savings: gold export formalisation strengthened FX supply, thereby supporting a stronger cedi.
“By increasing formal FX inflows, GoldBod helped compress depreciation expectations, reduced disorderly market conditions, and supported exchange-rate stability,” the authors state.
These savings should be understood as valuation gains rather than reductions in dollar obligations, but they carry real macro-fiscal significance by easing budgetary pressures.
The GoldBod framework also generates recurring benefits through avoided borrowing costs. By formalising 39.4 tons of ASM gold, Ghana avoided US$266–380 million annually in interest payments that would have been incurred if the same FX had been raised through external loans.
When accounting for non-debt reserve accumulation from all ASM exports (US$10.8 billion), avoided interest costs rise to between US$756 million and US$1.08 billion per year.
Beyond direct savings, the programme contributes to broader economic stability. Exchange-rate stabilisation reduces pass-through to inflation, strengthens purchasing power, and lowers input costs for firms.
The report calculates that the cedi’s 2025 appreciation could plausibly account for 4.2–8.4 percentage points of the observed decline in headline inflation, demonstrating GoldBod’s indirect impact on price stability.
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