Sammy Gyamfi- CEO of GoldBod
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The Minority in Parliament is demanding clarity on the source of funding for the operations of the Ghana Gold Board.

The caucus says although the government previously announced an allocation of 279 million dollars to kick-start the Board’s activities, a Right to Information request they made reveals that the Ministry of Finance has not made any financial releases to the Board since its establishment.

This, they argue, raises serious questions about how the institution is currently being financed.

Addressing journalists in Parliament, the Chairperson of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, Patrick Boamah, called on the government to provide full disclosure on the matter.

“If you go to the Gold Board’s website right now,

you will not find anything as contained in the Act. The Gold Board came into being in April and if April, May, June, July, August, we’ve gone way past a quarter, so that all this information ought to be there. We hear of Gold Board appointing brand ambassadors, delivering or supplying pickups to institutions and what have you, but what the law requires them to do under Section 42 hasn’t been complied with and it is very, very dangerous, especially where the World Bank, the European Union and other institutions are talking about where Ghana is headed to, especially in the fight against Galamsey, especially also in the Gold Board’s own Act which talks about sourcing and traceability,” Mr Boamah pointed out.

“Where is the Gold Board getting all those gold from? Is it from responsible mining, is it from small-scale miners or is it from Galamsey’s side?

In September, the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) donated an amount of GHS5 million and five Toyota Hilux pickups to the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) with a call to deal ruthlessly with recalcitrant illegal miners.

 

Mr. Gyamfi further indicated that the GoldBod is committed to supporting persons who desire to engage in legal and responsible mining, but will support NAIMOS to deal with recalcitrant ones.

“The Ghana Gold Board wants to buy more gold for purposes of foreign exchange generation for the country but the gold we buy must be mined and sourced responsibly to create better value and in a manner that doesn’t undermine the sanctity of our environment. Our collective survival as a people depends on the success of the fight against illegal mining and so we cannot afford to fail,” he said.

On October 28, GoldBod Jewellery, a subsidiary of the Ghana Gold Board, announced the appointment of media personality, Kwabena Anokye Disi, popularly known as Bola Ray and renowned actress, Jocelyn Dumas as its Brand Ambassadors.

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