Ghana’s gold mining sector scored 69 out of 100 points in the 2021 Resource Governance Index (RGI), improving by 13 points since the 2017 RGI. Stronger resource governance was driven by improvements across both the index’s value realization and revenue management components, with notable increases in governance of local impacts and national budgeting.
Highlights
• Key areas within the licensing and subnational resource revenue sharing subcomponents were still classified as “failing,” reinforcing the need for legislation and further disclosures. • Within value realization, the taxation subcomponent increased by 10 points to score 82 out of 100 points, moving it into the “good” performance band, while local impact improved by 29 points, scoring 100. • Ghana’s national budgeting governance improved due to the adoption of, and adherence to, fiscal rules. • While both law and practice scores improved since the 2017 RGI, the gap between them grew from -8 to -15 points. Enacted laws and rules must be adhered to by relevant state authorities to prevent the implementation gap from growing wider. • Weak adherence to open data standards, as well as the absence of online data portals related to the extractive sector, has held the mining sector back. • Ghana’s oil and gas sector outperformed the older gold mining sector owing to enhanced transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector legislative framework.
