Ghana Is The World's Eleventh-Largest Producer Of Gold, But Who Gains From Its Resources?

Thu July 25 2024

With total gold production rising from 2.82 million ounces, 87.7 tons in 2021 to an impressive 3.74 million ounces, 116.3 tons in 2022, Ghana is now the 11th largest producer of gold in the world. The industry is also growing at a rapid pace, but its share of the country's GDP is still very small, at about 1.5%. We must ascertain why Ghana's gold reserves aren't contributing to the country's development or the well-being of its citizens.

More importantly, who stands to benefit most from Ghanaian gold mining?

With Ghana's gold production yielding such impressive results, it defies logic that the Ghanaians should be living in poverty, that the country should be suffering from a lack of development, or that they should be turning to the IMF for financial support. For nearly eight years, Ghanaians have put up with a deceptive government led by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that siphons off national resources into private accounts while criminally attempting to blame COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Every Ghanaian, whether educated or not, should be aware of the greed-driven collapse of the country's banking institutions, which was caused by former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta. That means the NPP doesn’t care about them, since Akufo Addo appointed his relative to enable corruption. Ghanaians will find themselves in a precarious worse scenario if the NPP government is permitted to continue ruling the country since they have shown no concern for the people of Ghana but for themselves.

Even though Ghana is always developing new deposits and mines, the NPP administration chooses to cooperate with illicit mining where earnings are never accounted for and make it difficult to determine where they end up. Ghanaians should therefore, understand why Akufo Addo pledged to defend his office against illicit mining, only to back down and be exposed later as firmly behind the crime that is poisoning Ghana's rivers and endangering the country's ecosystems.

Two significant incidents that show that Akufo Addo or the NPP was involved in the illicit gold mining in Ghana that is ruining the country's economy and impoverishing its people are the accusations made by Ghanaians, especially those in the Ashanti Region, against Bernard Bosiako for illegal mining that contaminates the country's major rivers and destroys the environment. It shocked many Ghanaians when the president, Akufo Addo, came out to defend Bosiako and claim that he wasn’t responsible.

The second piece of evidence that Ghanaian President Akufo Addo was involved in the illicit gold trade and that the proceeds had been stashed abroad came from a documentary film titled "Gold Mafia," which was produced by the international news media Al Jazeera. The president is responsible for Ghana's demise. If he hadn't been president, the country would have been among the richest in West Africa. Unfortunately, he doesn't care and wants to force his trained apprentice on Ghanaians as president, but that’s not going to happen.

Ghanaians should prepare for even worse than what they are currently suffering, with the economy, businesses, and investments collapsed, if they allow hate and tribalism to aid in election rigging by the NPP government. Foreign ambassadors serving as representatives of their countries in Ghana are required to adhere to certain norms to prevent political conflicts with the Ghanaian government, however, they are all aware that Akufo Addo is not only a lazy man, but also a criminal.

The publicly available "Global Data's West Africa Gold Mining" study reveals that, aside from the corruption that has ravaged Ghana, "Gold Fields, a South African company, and Newmont, an American company, are the biggest deposit developers. Furthermore, the AngloGold Ashanti of South Africa, Kinross Gold and Galiano Gold of Canada, Golden Star Resources Ltd., and Perseus Mining of Australia are developing gold mines in Ghana."

Source: https://www.modernghana.com/