Parliament: Patrick Boamah Queries GoldBod on Rapid Issuance of 600 Licences Without Transparency

The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has issued licences to 600 companies to undertake buying, selling, assaying, refining, exporting of gold, the Member of Parliament for Okaikwei Central, Patrick Yaw Boamah, has disclosed.

He said the companies comprised of one licenced sole aggregator, 21 self-financing aggregators, 204 licenced tier one buyers and 420 licenced tier two buyers.

He said the speed at which GoldBod, established on April 2 this year and had its board of directors inaugurated in May this year, “leaves the door open for more questioned to be answered”. 

“GoldBod is not a year and so what due diligence process do they undertake to enable them to issue license these number of companies?” he said.

Bypassing Parliament

Addressing a press conference in Parliament today (Oct 30), Mr Boamah, who is also the Chairperson of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of Parliament, said Ghanaians must be interested in the number of licences being issued in terms of traceability and responsible mining and sourcing.

“How were those companies vetted, charged and have paid fees to the GoldBod since they companies are business entities that need to make the money from their investment, especially having paid all the fees to the GoldBod.

“GoldBod fees were not brought to my committee-the Subsidiary Legislation Committee-to look into and to approve under the fees and charges a Miscellaneous Act,” he said.

Letter of enquiry 

The Okaikwei Central MP said he had been making some enquiries around the activities of the GoldBod, Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance just to understand the financing arrangement or structure of how the GoldBod was being funded.

He said he had seen various reports from the central bank on the gold reserve programme that showed that $8.8 billion had been accrued to the state.

With Parliament having passed the Ghana Gold Board Act 2025, Act 1140, which the President assented to and gazette on April 2, this year, he said sources of funding of the GoldBod were stated under section 18 of the Act which included monies approved by Parliament.

Mr Boamah said he did not understand where the GoldBod was getting their money from, especially when in the 2025 budget the Minister of Finance said the ministry would make provision of cedi equivalent of $279 million as a revolving fund for the Ghana GoldBod.

The money, per the Finance Minister, was to allow the GoldBod to purchase and export at least three tonns of gold per week from small scale miners. 

Vague source of funding 

He explained that around September, this year, he started writing to the Ministry of Finance to find out how much they had allocated from the budget to the GoldBod. 

He said he on October 29 this year he received a letter from the Ministry of Finance dated the October 29 and signed by the Chief Director of the ministry.

Per the letter, he said the ministry said it had not made any financial releases as budgetary support to GoldBod since its establishment. 

“Consequently, the information you requested does not exist within the records of the ministry,” he quoted the ministry’s letter as saying.
Inviting Finance Minister and BoG Governor 

Mr Boamah also said section 42 of the GoldBod act, which dealt with reporting requirement of the Bod, stipulated that Bod shall publish every quarter on their website its operations, revenue accruing, contract entered, its expenditure and responsible sourcing and traceability.

On the contrary, he said there was nothing as contained in Act 1140 on its website.

“The GoldBod came into being in April and we have gone way past May, June, July and August, all this information ought to be there on their website.

“We hear of GoldBod appointing brand ambassadors, delivering and supplying pickups to institutions but what the law requires them to do under section 42 has not been complied with and it is very, very dangerous,” he said. 

He, therefore, expressed his intention to fill a question the floor of Parliament to invited the Finance Minister and the Governor of the BoG to tell the House to answer how GoldBod was being funded.