Ibrahim Mahama-led Damang mine delivers first 110kg of gold to Bank of Ghana after ownership takeover
Engineers & Planners, the mining company led by businessman Ibrahim Mahama, has made good on a key promise of Ghana’s new indigenous ownership drive, delivering the Damang Gold Mine’s inaugural 110-kilogramme gold consignment to the state Gold Board — a transaction officials say marks a turning point in how the country monetises its mineral wealth.
The delivery, made to the Gold Board’s assay laboratory in Accra on Thursday, May 30, 2026, represents the first production batch from the Damang Mine since control passed from a multinational operator to a locally owned firm. The gold will be tested, valued, and purchased on behalf of the Bank of Ghana before being refined and added to national reserves.
Gold Board Chief Executive Sammy Gyamfi, who received the Damang delegation personally, framed the handover as proof that expanding Ghanaian control over mineral resources is essential to building stronger foreign exchange buffers and long-term economic resilience. He also took aim at the historical record of large-scale foreign mining firms, characterising their contribution to Ghana’s reserve accumulation as limited, and called on other operators to follow Damang’s example.
Gyamfi said the transaction sits at the heart of the government’s Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation Programme, an initiative designed to shore up external buffers as the country continues to navigate currency and balance-of-payments pressures.
The Damang handover is the product of a deliberate policy reorientation that gathered pace earlier this year. In a March 24 notice, Lands Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah declared that only companies fully owned by Ghanaian citizens would be eligible to operate certain mining assets, effectively closing the door to foreign bidders. Engineers & Planners subsequently cleared stringent financial and technical hurdles to secure the concession, including demonstrating access to more than $505 million in funding.
Despite holding the distinction of being Africa’s largest gold producer, Ghana has long watched the bulk of that wealth flow to multinational companies, with comparatively little feeding directly into national reserves. The Damang transaction is being positioned by authorities as an early and concrete step toward reversing that imbalance — anchoring gold output more firmly to domestic economic priorities rather than foreign shareholder returns.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah