Small-scale gold exports on the rise

Gold exports from small scale operations accounted for 34 per cent of the country’s total export in 2013.

The 34 per cent equalled the total contribution of three large multinational companies: Anglogold Obuasi, Goldfields Tarkwa, and Newmont Ghana Limited to overall gold exports in the year under review.

Anglogold contributed six per cent of gold exports in 2013, Newmont had 13 per cent and Goldfields Tarkwa accounted for 15 per cent, equalling 34 per cent, same as what the small-scale miners contributed.

Although they are making significant contributions in the mining sector, small-scale miners do not pay any royalties to the government like the multinationals do.

The 2012 and 2013 report of the Ghana Extractive Industries’ Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) has therefore called for the need for government to introduce measures to help it rake revenues from small-scale mineral or gold producers.

It said the emergence of the contribution of small-scale and artisanal mining sector in Ghana required a new policy direction with regard to recognition, co-ordination with resultant state benefits.

“The rate of extraction of gold by the small-scale and artisanal miners means the state is at loss without any commensuration in revenue. Since most small-scale and artisanal miners are undocumented and with poor accounting practices, royalty payment may be instituted at the point of export,” the report further revealed at an oil and gas training programme at Elmina.

The campaign coordinator of Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Dr Steve Manteaw, said for the state to benefit from activities of these unlicensed small-scale miners, it must provide incentives for them, especially ‘galamsey’ operators for them to be motivated to formalize their operations.

He said currently, some of the small-scale miners export their gold through the Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) and that the ‘galamsey’ operators were more than the licensed ones.

“Some export through Precious Minerals Marketing Company Limited (PMMC), others through licensed buying agencies. If you put the ‘galamsey’ and licensed ones together and you say you are going to tax them, if you don’t take care there will be a problem. The ‘galamsey’ people will find people who will buy it and they will smuggle the gold without authorities even noticing it,” he explained at an oil and gas reporting workshop by the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalist (IFEJ) in Elmina.

In the 2015 budget statement of government, it said the minerals commission would review the country’s mining and environmental guidelines, and intensify monitoring to illegal small-scale mining sites to educate miners with the aim of mainstreaming their activities and facilitating the formation of more district mining committees.