Effective 1st May 2025, no one, not even licensed aggregators, can buy or export gold in Ghana unless cleared by a single state agency: GoldBod. Foreigners must exit the local gold market entirely by 30th April. Anyone trading outside this new regime faces criminal sanctions.

This is not policy. It is a state monopoly in disguise. And it flies in the face of everything our Constitution and trade framework stand for: a liberal economy, free private enterprise, and investor confidence.

Since when did we become a command economy? Some may point to COCOBOD as precedent, but let us be clear. Cocoa and gold are not the same.

COCOBOD exists to stabilise farmer incomes, not to criminalise market participation. It works with private Licensed Buying Companies, not against them. COCOBOD does not eliminate players from the value chain. It regulates and empowers them.

GoldBod, on the other hand, seeks to centralise buying, selling, licensing, and exporting under one roof and threatens jail time for anyone who trades outside its control. As someone trained in economic policy and governance, I know that is not regulation. That is state capture of a commodity market.

Centralising the buying, selling, assaying, and exporting of gold under a single state entity undermines competition, deters foreign capital, and places dangerous discretion in the hands of political appointees. It echoes the very mistakes that collapsed cocoa licensing in the 1970s and sent capital fleeing.

And what do we gain? A rushed eight-day transition period. A vague and untested licensing process.

The criminalisation of businesses that were legally operating just yesterday. We are not against reform.

We are against reform that is statist, opaque, and economically regressive. You cannot, on one hand, tout Ghana as an investment destination and, on the other, criminalise legitimate market participation overnight.

Our gold market needs regulation, not recolonisation by the state. This policy must be urgently reviewed before it causes more harm than the smuggling it seeks to stop.

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The writer, Dr Prince Hamid Armah, is the former Deputy Housing Minister and Member of Parliament for Kwesimintim