Ghana’s Gold Board (GoldBod) has delivered a dramatic boost to the country’s foreign exchange (FX) reserves by formalising previously smuggled artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) gold.
According to a technical report by Prof. Festus Ebo Turkson, Peter Junior Dotse, and Prof. Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako, recorded ASM exports surged from 63.6 tons in 2024 to 103 tons in 2025, representing an incremental 39.4 tons routed through formal channels.
This volume of formalisation translates into an estimated FX value of US$3.8 billion, nearly 18 times the US$214 million trading loss reported by the Bank of Ghana (BoG).
The report explains that the increase in recorded ASM exports is consistent with the pre-GoldBod smuggling estimate of 31.3 tons, suggesting that a substantial share of the rise reflects reduced leakage rather than a sudden surge in production.
“Even under conservative valuation assumptions, the formalisation dividend dominates the policy cost by an order of magnitude,” the report notes, emphasising that formalising just 2.2 tons of gold would have been sufficient to offset the reported BoG loss.
GoldBod’s operations have gone beyond mere accounting gains. By converting illicit gold flows into formal FX, the programme has strengthened Ghana’s external buffers without increasing debt.
The authors highlight that non-debt reserve accumulation and smuggling reduction together generate annual interest savings of between US$756 million and US$1.08 billion, underscoring the durability of the financing dividend.
“The much-discussed losses recorded by the BoG are largely accounting translation effects. Once these valuation effects are separated from the true economic cost, the programme’s net contribution remains strongly positive,” the report states.
These gains also support wider macroeconomic stability, improving import cover, reducing rollover risk, and contributing to exchange-rate stability.
The findings have significant policy implications, suggesting that the focus should be on sustaining formalisation gains and improving transparency.
“GoldBod represents a welfare-enhancing institutional innovation that internalises gold flows previously lost to illicit channels, strengthens Ghana’s external buffers, and reduces reliance on expensive debt financing,” the authors conclude.
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