Banking head wants gold export leaks plugged

The CEO of the Ghana Association of Banks, John Awuah, says the effective implementation of the new Ghana GoldBod has the potential to help stabilise the local currency, reports My Joy Online. GoldBod is the government entity established to regulate and control the gold trading market. He said Ghana was losing billions of dollars in unaccounted gold exports every year. He believes plugging those leaks through a disciplined and transparent GoldBod regime could be a game-changer for the Cedi. Awuah said foreign nationals often buy gold directly from mining communities, bypassing official channels. Even with licensed small-scale miners, oversight is weak. ‘How they get this gold outside of the country, nobody knows,’ he said. Awuah said some transactions happen offshore. ‘People manage to get Cedis in Ghana, but the dollars never arrive. Then they go back to the fold of our cities, buy our gold, they export, and about 10 to 15% of the proceeds come back just to help them do a few things. And the rest? We lose complete control over.’ He warned that without strong systems, the GoldBod would fail to deliver results. ‘If we run this transparently, professionally, and we can aggregate this gold purchase programme from the small-scale miners… as a country, we buy in Cedis and we sell… foreign currency comes to the country.’

Full My Joy Online report