Ghana bars export of unrefined gold

Kenneth Ashigbey, CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines and Media Coalition Against Illegal Mining, has revealed that it is currently more costly to refine gold in Ghana than in other countries. He attributes the high costs to various factors such as electricity prices, taxes on imported chemicals, and the expense of managing industrial waste.

These challenges, according to Ashigbey, hinder Ghanaian refineries' ability to compete with those in other nations. He also pointed out that larger refining operations can spread their costs over higher gold volumes, providing economies of scale that smaller Ghanaian refineries cannot match. Ashigbey indicated that talks are already taking place between GoldBod and the Ministry of Finance to explore ways to make Ghana's refineries more competitive.

He suggests that Ghana should aim to become a regional center for gold refining instead of solely focusing on gold produced domestically. He emphasized that beneficiation and value addition should not be viewed as a country-specific issue, but rather a regional one. Ashigbey believes that if Ghana's refineries can improve their efficiency and competitiveness, they could attract gold from other sub-regional countries.

He called for increased efficiency and effectiveness of local refineries, along with government incentives to lower refining costs and encourage more companies to refine gold locally. Ashigbey stressed that making local refining competitive is crucial for Ghana to retain more value from its gold resources.