The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has rejected claims that its Chief Executive Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, has endorsed illegal mining, describing a video circulating on social media as selectively edited to mislead the public.
The Board says the video seeks to create a false impression and fundamentally misrepresents the substance and context of the CEO’s remarks.
A statement issued from the Public Relations Unit of the Board on Saturday, October 24, 2026, says the clip removes the context in which Gyamfi explained government’s policy objective of identifying and documenting mining operators and transitioning eligible informal operators into a lawful, regulated and environmentally responsible regime.
According to the statement, it is not the Government’s policy to legitimise illegal mining but to end illegality by transitioning eligible operators into a formal system where they can be licensed, regulated, monitored and held accountable for their environmental conduct.
“This approach is consistent with the policy position repeatedly articulated by the GoldBod,” it stated, adding that “there is therefore a fundamental difference between permitting illegal mining and creating a pathway through which eligible informal or unlicensed miners can be regularized and brought into compliance with the law.”
“The CEO’s remarks concerned the latter,” it stated firmly.
At that engagement at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, which was attended by over 1,500 mine owners, Sammy Gyamfi had urged persons without licences to go ahead and mine as long as they were not operating in water bodies, forest reserves, roads and other restricted areas, and get registered later.
“Once it is not a water body, it is not a forest, or by the roadside, if you have a license or not, you can mine, and that is what the government is saying so that we can register them and regularize them,” he said.
The remarks have triggered criticism from the Minority in Parliament and the Ghana Coalition Against Galamsey, which described them as unlawful and demanded his dismissal.
The Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners has however defended the GoldBod CEO, insisting his call to formalise eligible unlicensed miners should not be interpreted as support for illegal mining.
Meanwhile, GoldBod says it has commenced stakeholder consultations on its planned ASM Formalisation and Financing Support Program with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, UMaT and MIIF ahead of a planned rollout in 2027.
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