The board says it will not relax its risk-mitigating measures
The Ghana Gold Board says it will not relax its risk-mitigating measures instituted to secure and protect state funds just to increase the number of aggregators.
This decision, according to the board, is not designed to create a monopoly but to serve as a necessary risk-mitigating measure to secure public funds.
The state agency has been criticised for creating an unfair monopoly in the gold purchasing market by granting an aggregator licence to only one company, Bawa Rock Company Limited.
But the board says it has not erred since it is only Bawa-Rock that has fully complied with the board’s aggregator licence requirements.
“Given the fact that licensed aggregators receive direct financing from GoldBod, an applicant for aggregator licence must meet a strict set of governance, legal, operational and financial requirements.
“These requirements include a minimum working capital of two million US dollars (2,000,000) and an operational experience for the three years preceding the licence application,” it said.
Speaking to the issue on Joy FM’s Newsfile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board, Sammy Gyamfi, clarified that Bawa Rock Company Limited was the only applicant that met the eligibility requirements for an aggregator licence during GoldBod’s first year of operations in 2025.
He said claims that GoldBod deliberately created a monopoly are based on a misunderstanding of how the Board’s gold trading and licensing system operates.
According to him, GoldBod operates a four-tier gold buying licence system. These include tier one buyers, tier two buyers, self-financing aggregators, and aggregators. All four categories are authorised to buy gold on behalf of GoldBod, not only aggregators.
He explained that tier one buyers are grassroots buyers licensed to purchase gold directly from licensed small-scale miners, while tier two buyers are permitted to buy from both miners and tier one buyers.
Self-financing aggregators, he said, use their own funds to buy gold for GoldBod, unlike aggregators who are primarily funded by GoldBod to carry out the purchases.
The board has said that, in all, 31 applications were received for the aggregator category, but only Bawa Rock met the eligibility criteria required for approval in 2025.
“In 2025, a total of 31 companies applied for the GoldBod aggregator licence; none of the 31 companies, except Bawa-Rock, met the most important financial requirement of providing a bank guarantee or an advance payment guarantee. Bawa-Rock is therefore not a monopoly but rather the only company that has so far met the eligibility criteria for a GoldBod aggregator licence.”
According to the Ghana Gold Board, before it transitioned from the Precious Minerals Marketing Company to the Gold Board, it worked with three licensed aggregators, including Bawa-Rock, but it suspended them for three months after they were found liable for regulatory infractions.
Even though the board says it has lifted the suspension, the two companies are yet to meet the eligibility criteria for an aggregator licence under the new GoldBod licence regime.
The two companies, the board says, applied and have been granted tier two licences and receive GoldBod financing through the licensed aggregator, Bawa-Rock, on a regular basis for gold purchases.
The agency says the application and approval process for licensing is ongoing and remains open to any entity interested in acquiring a GoldBod licence.
