GoldBod Licensing Process Still Locks Out Grassroots Jewellers – Federation Administrator

Story by Isaac Mortey

Months after the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) rolled out its licensing regime for goldsmiths and jewellers, a significant number of practitioners across the country have still not been able to access the platform, according to Kwabena Asomaning, Administrator of the Federation of Ghana Goldsmiths and Jewellers Association.

Asomaning said the barrier is not one of willingness but of access, pointing to a gap between formally trained jewellers and the many skilled artisans who learned the craft through apprenticeship rather than formal schooling.

He noted that some of the country’s most accomplished jewellers never attended school, and for them, an entirely online application process is not a minor inconvenience but a genuine obstacle to formalising their trade.

“If you ask my uncle who is a jeweller in Keta who doesn’t know how to log on the internet to get a licence from the GoldBod website, it becomes difficult and quite unrealistic.” Kwabena Asomaning, Administrator, Federation of Ghana Goldsmiths and Jewellers Association

According to Asomaning, this concern was raised directly with the GoldBod team during the federation’s stakeholder engagement sessions.

The federation’s central recommendation was to simplify the process and, more importantly, to link it directly to the federation itself, which maintains records of its members and their locations in the country.

The Federation’s Proposal
Reduce the friction of the current online-only application process
Link licensing directly with the Federation of Ghana Goldsmiths and Jewellers Association
Leverage the federation’s existing member records to verify and locate practitioners nationwide
Extend access to artisans in areas such as Keta who lack the digital literacy or infrastructure to self-apply online

Asomaning argued that routing verification through the federation would resolve the core problem, GoldBod would not need every individual jeweller to navigate a digital application on their own, since the federation already knows where its members are located and can vouch for their standing in the trade.

Despite the regime having been formally enrolled, Asomaning maintains that its practical reach has fallen short. Large numbers of jewellers, he said, particularly those in smaller towns and rural areas, remain outside the licensing system simply because the process was not built with their circumstances in mind.