- Trace Every Ounce: Dr Ken Ashigbey Urges GoldBod to Block Galamsey Gold from Official Trade
The Ghana Gold Board is being urged to make traceability the backbone of its gold-trading architecture as concerns grow that illegally mined gold could find its way into the formal market and weaken Ghana’s standing with international buyers.
Kenneth Ashigbey, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, has warned that GoldBod’s credibility will ultimately depend not only on how much gold it purchases and exports, but on whether it can prove where that gold comes from.
His argument is straightforward: a formal trading system cannot claim to clean up Ghana’s gold market if illegally produced gold can still enter it through weak links in the supply chain.
“If you have a proper traceability system, then illegal gold cannot enter the formal market,” Mr Ashigbey said.
The institution was established to centralise the purchase, trading and export of gold from Ghana’s licensed small-scale mining sector, with wider objectives of reducing smuggling, strengthening foreign-exchange inflows and improving transparency within a segment of the mining industry that has long been vulnerable to informal activity.
But centralising purchases alone does not automatically guarantee legitimacy.
If GoldBod cannot distinguish between gold produced by licensed operators and gold originating from illegal mining sites, then the formal system risks becoming a route through which illicit gold is effectively legitimised.
For Ghana, the issue has become more important because international gold markets are placing greater emphasis on supply-chain integrity.
Refiners, jewellers, institutional investors and other buyers increasingly want evidence that gold has not been linked to illegal mining, environmental destruction, money laundering or human-rights abuses. That means traceability is no longer simply a regulatory exercise.
A gold-producing country may still be able to sell metal without a sophisticated traceability system, but the cost of weak verification could increasingly show up through tighter due diligence, higher compliance costs, reputational discounts or reduced access to premium buyers.
The country has spent years trying to reconcile two competing realities: gold remains one of its most important export earners, yet a significant part of the small-scale mining sector has been associated with illegal operations, environmental destruction and informal trading networks.
But for the model to work, Ashigbey argues that every ounce entering the official chain must be linked to a legitimate source.
That requires more than licences on paper. It requires a system capable of verifying where gold was produced, by whom, under what permit and through which chain of custody it moved before reaching the buyer.
Digital traceability, according to the Chamber of Mines chief, should therefore sit alongside strict licensing enforcement and effective monitoring as core features of GoldBod’s operations. If a licensed dealer can purchase gold from an unlicensed miner and pass it into the formal system without detection, the integrity of the entire framework becomes questionable.
If gold from environmentally destructive operations is mixed with legitimately mined output before export, the distinction between legal and illegal production effectively disappears.
And if buyers abroad cannot independently trust Ghana’s documentation, GoldBod risks becoming a centralised purchaser without achieving the deeper objective of supply-chain credibility.
Illegal mining continues to damage rivers, forests and agricultural land while also creating a shadow gold economy that deprives the state of tax revenue and weakens the accuracy of official export data.
Illicit trading can also create channels for smuggling and financial crime.
A stronger traceability regime would make it more difficult for gold from such operations to be laundered into legitimate export channels. It would also give regulators clearer visibility over the movement of gold from mine site to final sale.
That could improve tax compliance, strengthen production data and allow authorities to identify where leakages are occurring in the supply chain.
GoldBod has already indicated that it intends to introduce a comprehensive track-and-trace framework. The effectiveness of that system, however, will depend on how deeply it penetrates the small-scale mining ecosystem.
A traceability platform that begins only at the point of purchase may be insufficient.
To be credible, the chain may need to begin at the production source itself, linking gold to specific licensed mining areas, operators and transactions. The challenge is therefore partly technological and partly institutional.
Technology can record transactions, generate digital identities and create auditable records.
But systems are only as reliable as the information entered into them. If licences are weakly enforced, if monitoring is poor or if officials can be circumvented, a digital platform can still end up validating false or incomplete information.
That is why Dr Ashigbey’s warning extends beyond software.
For GoldBod, this means ensuring that licensed buyers purchase only from authorised sources and that discrepancies between production, sales and export volumes can be identified quickly. For regulators, it means ensuring that mining licences are tied to real operations and that illegal operators cannot simply use licensed intermediaries to access the formal market.
A compliant miner who bears the cost of licences, environmental obligations, taxes and operational standards should not have to compete with illegal operators whose gold can be sold into the same formal market without equivalent compliance costs.
A credible traceability system would therefore create a clearer distinction between compliant and non-compliant production.
Stronger supply-chain transparency could improve Ghana’s attractiveness to international refiners and investors increasingly guided by environmental, social and governance standards.
It could also support premium market access if buyers view Ghanaian gold as lower-risk and easier to verify.
That matters because the global gold market is no longer concerned only with purity and price. For institutional investors, refineries and jewellery brands, the ability to demonstrate responsible sourcing is increasingly important to customers, regulators and shareholders.
A country that can provide credible proof of origin therefore potentially strengthens both its market reputation and bargaining position.
If illegal gold repeatedly enters the formal supply chain, confidence can be damaged quickly.
Once buyers begin questioning the reliability of origin certificates or compliance systems, every shipment can face additional scrutiny. That can raise transaction costs for legitimate exporters as well.
