GHANA will implement a new sliding-scale gold royalty regime on Tuesday despite opposition from the US, China and other Western governments, as well as senior mining executives, said Reuters citing the country’s mining regulator.
The system replaces a flat 5% royalty rate and ties state revenues to the gold price. Under the framework, miners will pay 12% when bullion reaches $4,500 per ounce — a threshold already breached, with gold currently trading above $5,000, said Reuters.
Lithium royalties will similarly move to a sliding scale of 5–12%, tied to prices between $1,500 and $3,200 per ton, while all other minerals retain the existing flat 5% rate.
Isaac Tandoh, CEO of the Minerals Commission, told Reuters that diplomatic missions had raised concerns about the 12% ceiling. The missions urged Ghana to set the top rate at the $5,000-per-ounce mark, a proposal Accra rejected.
But they had not objected to the broader policy direction, he added. “They met us, they are not against the review in principle,” Tandoh said.
The policy forms part of a broader effort by African governments to capture greater value from surging commodity prices.
Reuters reported last week that Washington, Beijing and several European governments had mounted an unusual joint effort to halt the measure.
The Ghana Chamber of Mines warned the regime would curtail new projects and reduce output. Tandoh dismissed such concerns, arguing that regulatory stability mattered more to investors than marginal increases in production costs, and that modelling confirmed the sliding scale preserved industry margins while boosting government revenue.
