Lands Ministry denies minister quit GoldBod board, says chief director sits in for him

Pinned summary · as of 04:20

A statement from the lands ministry issued on Tuesday, 29 September dismisses as untrue the talk that Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah walked away from the GoldBod board. Marcus Haligah, who heads the ministry's civil service side as Chief Director, has been sitting in for him, the ministry said, and no quarrel with GoldBod lies behind that.

What we know

• The ministry publicly denied that the minister had resigned from GoldBod's board and asked the public and the media to pay no attention to such reports. “The Ministry wishes to state categorically that the reports are false and do not reflect the facts,” it said.
• Per the ministry, Mr Armah-Kofi Buah attended board business in person at first. From January 2026 he handed that duty to Marcus Haligah, who is Chief Director at the ministry.
• The ministry described the move as purely administrative. It said the minister was running two ministries at the time, which made it hard for him to be present at every board meeting and engagement.
• The ministry said GoldBod's governance framework lets board members send designated representatives in their place, and that Mr Haligah's role falls within that provision.
• The ministry denied any disagreement between the minister and GoldBod, and said it works well with the institution. A ministry spokesperson, Paa Kwesi Schandorf, told listeners that any suggestion to the contrary should be dismissed, as reported by Rainbow Radio Online.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  Citi Newsroom and The Herald Ghana quoted the ministry as saying the minister is still a board member and that missing some engagements signals no conflict. That sits awkwardly beside the account of a stand-in attending, and other reports left the point out.
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  The Vaultz News, MyJoyOnline, Onua Online and The Ghana Report each said the ministry pointed to a recent GoldBod clarification that backs up its explanation. No other report describes GoldBod's own statement, and it has not been separately verified.
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  Onua Online dated the ministry's statement to Monday, 29 September 2026, whereas other reports said it came out on Tuesday, 29 September.
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  A later ministry release, as relayed by The Vaultz News, listed cooperation with GoldBod: an exploration agreement signed by the Ghana Geological Survey Authority, forestry land-reclamation work, and vehicles supplied to the anti-illegal-mining secretariat NAIMOS. These points rest on the ministry alone and have not been checked independently.
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  YEN.com.gh reported that social media posts had suggested the minister quit the board, with some tying it to tension with the institution. The ministry has rejected this, and YEN.com.gh presented the posts only as circulating talk.
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  YEN.com.gh also reported a Facebook post of 27 September 2026 in which the Bank of Ghana's Governor, Dr Johnson Asiama, said he left the GoldBod board roughly five months earlier and has skipped its meetings since. The site tied the post to NPP concerns about a possible conflict of interest, raised by Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, MP for Karaga, at a press briefing on 1 September 2026. Only YEN.com.gh carried this.

Why it matters for Ghana

GoldBod is the state body at the centre of Ghana's gold sector, so questions about who sits on its board bear on how the sector is overseen. The ministry's account tells miners, gold traders and the wider public that the sector minister stays represented through a senior official, and that it puts the arrangement down to workload rather than any rift. The unresolved question of whether he is still a board member will keep drawing scrutiny to the institution's governance.