The government is in the process of amending the three per cent withholding tax on unprocessed precious minerals as a measure to fight gold smuggling.
Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, George Mireku Duker, who disclosed this, explained that the current provision had become a motivation for gold dealers to shun formal and legal means to trade their gold in the country and were rather smuggling the product to other neighbouring countries for export.
The situation, he said, was impacting negatively on the government revenue and resulted in dwindling statistics of the country’s gold saying “if this continues, Ghana will lose its position as a leading gold producer in Africa.”
The Deputy Minister was speaking in Accra last Friday during the commissioning of a nine-member committee to fight gold smuggling in the country.
Membership of the committee included representatives from the Ghana Armed Forces, National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), National Security Council, Ghana Revenue Authority, (GRA), Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Ghana Boundary Commission (GHBC), Minerals Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.
The committee is expected to work directly under the Precious Minerals Marketing Company Limited (PMMC).
Among other things, Mr Duker said there was an urgent need of a taskforce to enforce the current law to stop gold smuggling in the country.
“People are smuggling our gold and we must work to prevent that and that is the essence of this meeting.
The cause of this smuggle is basically the three per cent withholding tax placed on unprocessed precious Minerals produced by Small-Scale Miners, which we are working to get amended,” he noted.
He said although the ministry had commenced discussions with cabinet for the law on the three per cent withholding tax to be amended, there was the urgent need for swift ways to stop the menace.
“Before this law is amended, we cannot sit for people to connive and hide under this law and continue to smuggle and so there is the need for us to put up measures to curb this illegality,” Mr Duker stressed.
He admonished the committee to ready themselves for the task ahead saying “you cannot afford to fail at this task because the Sector Minister is determined to see it through and so is Ghana depending on you.”
The Deputy Minister further assured the committee that the ministry’s doors were always opened to support them with all the needed resources and logistics for the smooth running of their operations.
The Chairman of the PMMC Board, Kiston Akomeng Kissi, asked the security services to work hand-in-hand with the ministry and the PMMC to fight the menace which was denying the country of much-needed revenue.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
