The African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has proposed for the abolishment of the three per cent withholding tax on gold grade.

According to a study conducted by the think tank, the implementation of the levy has been unsuccessful.

It comes on the heels of a report by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company revealing that since the introduction of the tax, the purchase and export of gold has witnessed a downward dive.

Speaking on JoyNews, Executive Director of ACEP Ben Boakye explained that the absence of data on how much gold is produced in the country will make it difficult for the Ghana Revenue Authority to implement the three per cent withholding tax.

“We made prescription on how GRA could address this and that was also to listen to what the small-scale miners were doing.

“In fact in 2016, there was an agreement between the small scale miners association and the GRA to give a flat rate of 500 cedis a quarter so that you know that once you have a small scale license you have to pay tax to the state, and that allows them to also account to their output, and that generate data the state can work with.

"That was thrown aside and a new policy was adapted to apply a three per cent withholding tax which we thought was going to be exerted to the situation because GRA has no right to establish how much gold is produced and be able to tax.”

A JoyNews’ investigations have uncovered how a gold smuggling syndicate illegally exports gold through the country’s land, airports and seaports. 

On the back of this, Parliament and Ministry for Lands and Natural Resources have directed the Criminal Investigations Department of Police to probe the matter and present a report.