As global gold prices reach record highs, a leading Ghanaian policy analyst argues the country is failing to capitalize on its mineral wealth by focusing on the wrong links in the supply chain.
In an op-ed for Semafor, Bright Simons, Honorary Vice President of the Imani think tank in Accra, contends that Ghana has mistakenly equated refining raw gold with meaningful economic transformation. The country, the world’s sixth-largest gold producer, derived nearly 70% of its export earnings—roughly $21 billion—from gold last year.
“Turning gold into a strategic lever for growth has been the country’s perennial challenge,” Simons writes. However, he asserts that the narrow pursuit of “value addition” through building refineries has been misguided. He notes that most gold already leaves Africa relatively refined, and the profit margins for refineries are razor-thin, often between 0.05% and 0.5%.
This focus, Simons says, has led to repeated failures, with at least half a dozen major refineries in Ghana ending up idle, including a recent government-backed project mired in controversy. “The simple truth is that Ghana has repeatedly mistaken refining for ‘value transformation.’ But refinement is not where meaningful value lies,” he argues.
Simons points to jewelry and technology as the real value drivers. Jewelry, he notes, generates on average 300% more value than bullion, while electronics and medical technologies are even more lucrative. He criticizes Ghana for neglecting the necessary “knowledge ecosystem” to support these industries, citing the lack of an industry-standard gold assaying laboratory despite 130 years of industrial mining.
The analyst calls for Ghana to emulate the public-private partnership models of countries like Thailand and the Philippines, where state investment in skills, design, and certification complements private-sector branding and market access.
“Ghana must stop confusing control with progress, and refinement with transformation,” Simons concludes. “Political imagination must now be matched by skilled policy execution.”
The critique comes as Ghana’s leaders grapple with leveraging natural resources to achieve upper-middle income status. Record gold prices present a potential windfall, but Simons’ argument suggests the current strategy may not yield the long-term developmental gains the country seeks.
