A prominent policy think tank, the Africa Policy Lens (APL), has raised serious red flags over the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), warning that the state institution is dangerously overstepping its legal boundaries. The APL is calling for the urgent amendment of Section 25 of the GoldBod Act, cautioning that the current legal framework allows the Board to encroach on the mandates of existing agencies, creating a recipe for institutional chaos and potential financial losses.
In a hard-hitting statement issued on June 22, the APL pointed to recent high-profile interventions by GoldBod as evidence that the Board is morphing into a “de facto upstream small-scale mining regulator”—a role it was never designed to play.
The Flashpoint: Forest Reclamation and Geological Exploration The think tank’s concerns were triggered by a recent GH¢36.35 million agreement between GoldBod, the Forestry Commission, and the Ghana Armed Forces to reclaim 50 hectares of the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve devastated by illegal mining.
While the APL acknowledged the noble intent of restoring degraded lands, it argued that GoldBod has no business executing such projects. The statement emphasized that the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources already commands a robust network of agencies—including the Minerals Commission, the National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme (NAELP), the Forestry Commission, and the Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project (GLRSSMP)—which possess the explicit legal mandates and technical capacity to handle reclamation.
This concern was further compounded by GoldBod’s plans to partner with the Ghana Geological Survey Authority (GGSA) and the Minerals Commission for geological explorations targeting artisanal miners. Citing a Right to Information (RTI) response from the Minerals Commission dated May 18, 2026, the APL highlighted that the Commission is already being sidelined, being reduced to merely providing “blocked out areas” to the GGSA on GoldBod’s behalf.
The Risks of Parallel Governance According to the APL, allowing GoldBod to operate unchecked in the upstream sector is creating a bureaucratic nightmare. The think tank warned that this mandate duplication is fostering parallel governance structures within the mining sector, which will ultimately distort accountability frameworks, weaken the independence of established agencies like the Minerals Commission, and create costly inefficiencies.
The Legislative Fix: Amend Section 25 To arrest this institutional overreach, the APL has proposed specific, surgical amendments to the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140), particularly targeting Section 25, which governs how funds are disbursed for small-scale mining activities.
Currently, the APL argues, the Act gives GoldBod’s Board of Directors too much power to administer and dictate the use of funds for upstream activities—areas outside their core mandate.
The think tank proposes that Section 25 be amended to strictly limit GoldBod to a “pass-through” role. Specifically, funds earmarked under Section 25(1) should be legally mandated to be transferred directly to the existing public institutions that actually have the statutory mandate to execute upstream projects, as outlined in Section 25(2).
Furthermore, the APL is demanding the immediate amendment of Section 25(3) to strip GoldBod of the authority to issue guidelines governing the allocation and utilization of these upstream funds.
A Call to Return to Core Mandate The overarching message from the Africa Policy Lens is clear: GoldBod must cease its upstream interventions under the guise of “funding.” The think tank insisted that the Board must immediately retract its focus to its core mandate as defined in Section 2 of the Act, leaving the complex business of upstream small-scale mining regulation, exploration, and land reclamation to the specialized agencies legally equipped to handle them.
