Africa-Press – Ghana. President John Dramani Mahama has shared the success story of the Ghana Gold Board (Goldbod) with the Zambian National Assembly (Parliament).
The Goldbod is the sole authority with exclusive rights to buy, sell, weigh, grade, assay, value and export gold and other precious minerals in Ghana.
President Mahama with his wife, First Lady Lordina Mahama are on a three-day state visit to Zambia at the invitation his Zambian counterpart President Hakainde Hichilema.
In his address to the Zambian Parliament, President Mahama said to achieve economic transformation, Africa must not be ashamed to leverage its comparative advantage in natural resources.
He noted that Africa must exercise greater sovereignty over its natural resources if it was to create prosperity for its people.
“The era of parceling large-scale concessions to speculators who then flip them for huge profits must end,” he said.
“We have the know-how; the technology, and the capital are available. Indigenous companies must therefore be encouraged to participate in the extractive sector.
“We must support our indigenous private sector to capture the commanding heights of our economies.”
President Mahama explained that in Ghana, mining and the extractive sector played a significant role in their economy and like Zambia and other African countries, they were a source of critical minerals like gold, bauxite, and manganese, yet very little value was added to them locally.
“My country is changing that narrative. Ghana established the Gold Board in April last year to take control of and regulate gold exports,” reiterating that the Gold Board was given sole authority to export gold out of Ghana.
He said since the Board’s establishment, gold exports from the artisanal and small-scale mining sector have increased from 63 tons to 104 tons over the past 10 months.
President Mahama said this had earned Ghana over $10 billion in forex inflow over the period.
“We are taking steps to domesticate the value addition of our minerals,” he stated.
The President said the Board had recently signed an agreement with a local gold refinery to refine about one ton of gold per week, rather than exporting raw Dore gold.
He said they aimed to commence local processing of their manganese and bauxite as well, instead of exporting the raw ores.
President Mahama said they had also replaced the flat-rate royalty system for minerals with a sliding scale from five per cent to 12 per cent, depending on the international market price of the mineral.
