The 2027 Budget brings in a 3 per cent discount on GoldBod’s purchases of small-scale gold and aims to refine at least 70 per cent of it locally by December 2027.
Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, the Finance Minister, set out the measures when he presented the 2027 Budget to Parliament on Thursday.
The Budget’s headline numbers include GH¢389 billion in spending, no new taxes and GH¢30 billion for the New Economy.
The discount, to be introduced in consultation with industry stakeholders, is meant to bring the cost of raising foreign exchange and building reserves down further to 2 per cent.
That cost has already dropped from 16 per cent in 2025 to 5 per cent in 2026 through the Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation Policy.
In plain terms, the discount means sellers will receive 97 pesewas for every cedi of the purchase price GoldBod would otherwise have paid. Forson called on the Licensed Gold Buyers Associations and Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners to back the reforms.
The scale of GoldBod’s buying is now large. Since January 2026 it has shipped 88 tonnes of small-scale gold worth US$12 billion, ahead of the large-scale sector’s 80.64 tonnes valued at US$10.23 billion.
The Budget says those earnings are boosting foreign-exchange supply, growing reserves and helping to steady the cedi.
The Budget also puts the cost of that reserve work on the government’s books, estimating GH¢17.2 billion, about 1.0 per cent of GDP, in transfers to GoldBod as the cost of implementing the reserve accumulation policy.
That follows an August row over where the cost sat, when Senyo Hosi argued the loss sat with the Bank of Ghana rather than GoldBod.
On refining, the Budget wants Ghana refining at least 70 per cent of its artisanal and small-scale gold by December 2027, climbing to 100 per cent by December 2028, when raw small-scale gold exports will be banned outright.
The push sits under a US$1.5 billion critical-minerals value-addition pillar covering manganese, bauxite, lithium and gold, building on earlier plans to keep more gold value in Ghana.
What the Budget does not say
The Statement sets no start date in 2027 for the discount and gives no reference price or pricing formula.
It names no refineries, gives no capacity figures and attaches no cost to the refining push. The full 2027 Budget Statement is published on the Finance Ministry’s website.
