The government of Ghana has decided that all gold tracked through illegal mining activities and confiscated through the blockchain tracking system by the Ghana Gold Board would be sold and the proceeds used to finance the reclamation of illegally mined areas, a Senior Presidential Advisor, Joyce Bawah Mogtari, has said.

In an interview with Woezor TV last Sunday, Ms Bawah Mogtari said the Ghana Gold Board was working to ensure that all illegally mined gold did not enter the formal market.

“If gold is acquired or mined illegally, they will have a way of preventing those from coming into the legal markets,” she said in the interview which was aired on Sunday [April 20].

She explained that funds generated from the sale of such confiscated gold would go into cleaning polluted water bodies and rehabilitating lands that have been degraded over the years as a result of unregulated mining.

“We have a challenge on our hands: pollution of our water bodies, degradation of our forests,” Ms Bawah Mogtari said.

“I am delighted that so many young people are working on ideas, interventions that will help us regenerate our forests and clean our water bodies.”

Ms Bawah Mogtari indicated that the Gold Board would rely on international standards to trace the origin of gold brought to the market, drawing parallels to certification schemes introduced to curb the trade in conflict diamonds.

“The world decided to punish those who were investing in blood diamonds by refusing to buy them. Diamonds from those communities were denied access to global markets. It was a good way to sanitise that industry,” she noted.

She estimated that Ghana exports about $5 billion worth of gold annually, a sizeable share of which is suspected to come from illegal sources that yield little or no benefit to the state or local communities.

“That is the sort of thing we want to stop. It is that kind of exportation we do not want to see anymore,” she said.

According to her, the Gold Board had already made progress in its set-up and was receiving support from legitimate players within Ghana’s mining sector.

“So far, they’ve taken some giant strides. I’m looking forward to how it works out. And since the biggest beneficiaries, those in the industry, welcome it, I think all of us should give it a chance,” she added.