A new academic assessment has credited the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) with successfully recovering 39.4 metric tons of artisanal and small scale mined gold that would otherwise have been lost to illicit channels in 2025, representing approximately US$3.8 billion in foreign exchange inflows.
The findings come from a technical report titled “Evaluating the Macroeconomic Effects of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod)”, presented to GoldBod on January 4, 2026 by economists from the University of Ghana and the University of Ghana Business School. The report was authored by Prof. Festus Ebo Turkson from the University of Ghana’s Department of Economics, Peter Junior Dotse also from the Department of Economics, and Prof. Agyapomaa Gyeke Dako from the University of Ghana Business School.
According to the report, recorded artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) gold exports increased sharply from 63.6 tons in 2024 to 103.0 tons in 2025, representing a 62 per cent increase. The additional 39.4 tons represents gold that was previously smuggled out of the country but has now been captured through GoldBod’s formal purchasing and export framework.
Valued conservatively at US$96.5 million per ton, this recovery brought approximately US$3.8 billion in new foreign exchange into Ghana’s formal economy. The economists describe this as a significant boost for the country’s financial stability, strengthening international reserves and supporting currency stability.
The report argues that GoldBod’s benefits far exceed the US$214 million trading loss reported by the Bank of Ghana, yielding a benefit to cost ratio of approximately 18 to 1. The economists note that formalising just 2.2 tons of gold would have been enough to offset the reported loss.
The researchers explain that most of the reported Bank of Ghana loss reflects accounting translation effects rather than real cash losses. Gold is purchased at near retail exchange rates to discourage smuggling, but when foreign exchange from exports is recorded, it must be booked at the lower interbank rate. This difference creates a paper loss on the Bank of Ghana’s books, even though the country still receives the full economic value of the gold.
The true economic cost of the programme, covering transaction fees, purity adjustments and discounts, is estimated at about 2.5 per cent of gold value, far lower than figures circulating in public debate.
Beyond smuggling reduction, the report highlights GoldBod’s role as a non debt source of foreign exchange. GoldBod enabled ASM exports reached US$10.8 billion in 2025, reducing Ghana’s need to borrow externally to shore up reserves. Had Ghana borrowed equivalent funds on international markets, annual interest costs would have ranged between US$756 million and US$1.08 billion, the report estimates.
The inflows supported by GoldBod contributed to broader macroeconomic improvements, including higher international reserves estimated at US$11 to 12 billion, exchange rate stabilisation, lower domestic cost of external debt service estimated at GH¢6.2 billion, and reduced import bill valuation between January and October 2025 estimated at GH¢50.6 billion.
The economists argue that GoldBod should not be judged as a profit seeking trading entity but rather as a strategic macroeconomic stabilisation and formalisation tool. The report describes GoldBod’s pricing strategy of paying competitive rates to local producers as key to removing the incentive to divert gold through informal and cross border channels.
By aligning domestic gold prices more closely with international market rates, GoldBod effectively redirected supply into the formal system, allowing the state to track volumes, improve compliance, and secure foreign exchange that previously bypassed official channels.
The researchers recommend sustaining price competitiveness to prevent a return of smuggling, improving transparency by clearly separating accounting effects from economic costs in Bank of Ghana reporting, strengthening governance and oversight, and treating GoldBod’s operational costs as a quasi fiscal expense explicitly funded through the national budget.
The report concludes that GoldBod represents a high return policy intervention for Ghana’s economy, converting illicit gold flows into formal foreign exchange, strengthening the country’s external position, reducing dependence on costly borrowing, and supporting macroeconomic stability.
GoldBod was established under the GoldBod Act 1140 of Parliament, passed on March 28, 2025 and signed into law by President John Dramani Mahama. The entity operates under the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and was allocated a revolving fund of US$279 million in the 2025 national budget to support its operations, including the weekly purchase and export of up to three tons of gold.
