Over US$10 billion worth of gold shipped out of Ghana between 2014 and 2016 has not been accounted for by Ghana’s tax and duty collectors, a report by the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas (CSPOG) says.

According to the platform’s chairman, Steve Manteaw, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has particularly failed to track the actual amount of gold exported from Ghana to Dubai and India.

Gold shipments

According to Manteaw, Ghanaian records suggest that between January 2014 and January 2016, a total of US$2 billion of minerals revenues were channelled to Switzerland while revenues from trades with Dubai and India amounted to US$7 billion.

In all, minerals revenues not captured by the GRA amounted to US$10 billion the CSPOG chairman claims.

The report suggests a total of 101,179 kilogrammes of gold was shipped out of Ghana just to India without revenue being captured by the GRA.

Corruption risks

The report also points to risks of corruption in the extractive industries and says that those involved in regulating the sector are at a “high risk of corruption”.

The CSPOG was established in 2009 as a platform for knowledge sharing and for harmonising lobbying and other activities of Ghanaian civil society organisations concerned with the oil and gas sector.