Export earnings and local procurement figures tell only part of the story. Ghana’s mining supply chain shows how better measurement could inform manufacturing investment and negotiations.
By Dr. Richard Munang
Every mine keeps a shopping list.
Explosives. Cement. Lime. Work clothes. Steel balls that grind ore during mineral processing.
Those purchases offer a practical starting point for a larger question: of every dollar generated by mining, how much becomes income for the country supplying the resource?
Export revenue alone cannot answer it. Nor can the amount passing through domestic banks or invoices issued by locally registered suppliers.
I call the question behind this accounting the “keep rate”. Its purpose is to examine the value retained through public revenue, workers’ income, domestic production and resident ownership. Turning that question into a defensible number requires clear boundaries and evidence.
What Ghana’s figures can tell us
The Ghana Chamber of Mines’ President’s address of 30 May 2025 reports that producing members accounted for 59.4% of national gold output in 2024 and generated approximately US$7.1 billion in mineral revenue.
The address separately reports US$2.9 billion in local procurement, US$1.4 billion in taxes and more than US$600 million in employee emoluments.
These are useful starting points. They describe reported payments, however, rather than a verified measure of retained value. They concern the Chamber’s reporting population and should not be presented as totals for Ghana’s entire mining industry.
Adding them together would require further checks. If employee income tax is included in both gross remuneration and tax payments, it must be counted once. Government dividends must likewise appear in only one category.
Local procurement needs an additional distinction. A supplier registered in Ghana may import the product it sells. The invoice records a domestic transaction; it does not establish how much manufacturing, employment or income the purchase supports within Ghana.
The available figures therefore do not establish a national keep rate, or a reliable lower and upper bound for one.
Money returned through a domestic financial institution is a different measure again. It may subsequently pay for imported equipment or services. Repatriation is relevant to foreign-exchange flows, but it does not demonstrate how much income ultimately remains.
A procurement opportunity, followed by an illustrative calculation
Grinding media makes the distinction concrete.
In April 2026 coverage of the launch of Ghana’s grinding-media standards, Chamber chief executive Kenneth Ashigbey was reported as saying procurement had grown to over US$131 million by December 2023, with about US$20 million sourced from local manufacturers.
Business & Financial Times separately reported his estimate that the new standards could unlock about US$92 million in opportunities for local manufacturers. This is the Chamber’s reported assessment, rather than a figure calculated here by subtracting the procurement amounts.
The estimate points to a historical sourcing opportunity. It does not establish confirmed demand available to any particular new factory.
Ghana’s work on grinding-media standards addresses an important commercial issue: manufacturers must produce inputs that mines can trust. Local production still has to meet requirements for performance, reliability and cost.
Now consider a hypothetical expansion in domestic manufacturing that wins US$92 million in additional orders over a specified period.
The value retained would depend on imported inputs, payments abroad and the income generated domestically. For illustration:
| Assumed share ultimately retained domestically | Illustrative retained amount |
|---|---|
| 25% | US$23 million |
| 50% | US$46 million |
| 100% | US$92 million |
The calculation is additional orders multiplied by the assumed retained share. The final row is a theoretical ceiling.
None of these percentages is an observed result. The illustration does not establish that the orders have been won, that production capacity exists or that the investment would be commercially viable. It also cannot be divided by the separate 2024 mining revenue figure to claim a measured improvement in Ghana’s keep rate.
Its value is to expose the assumption that matters. Winning a domestic supply contract and retaining the contract’s full value are different outcomes.
What businesses and governments should negotiate
For a manufacturer, the next questions concern customers, specifications, production costs and finance.
How much demand can buyers credibly commit to? Which inputs must be imported? Can the proposed plant meet quality requirements consistently? What payment terms would allow it to finance production?
For governments, these questions can improve investment negotiations. A commitment to increase local procurement becomes more useful when it identifies products, delivery dates, manufacturing activity and evidence of performance.
An investment proposal should distinguish the value of contracts from the domestic income those contracts could generate. It should also distinguish existing employment from additional jobs, and projected jobs from people actually employed.
The same discipline applies to local processing. A processing plant may create opportunities, but its contribution cannot be inferred from its sales alone. Imported machinery, operating inputs, financing costs and payments to non-resident owners all affect the assessment.
Royalties remain important. They are one part of the commercial relationship alongside employment, procurement and ownership.
Build a measure that others can reproduce
A practical pilot should begin with a defined group of companies and one reporting period.
The revenue denominator must cover that same group and period. Payments should be recorded in a consistent currency, with any conversions explained.
The supporting ledger should distinguish public receipts, workers’ income, purchases and ownership returns. Where a supplier’s contribution is traced through its wages, taxes and profits, those amounts must not also be counted through the supplier’s full invoice.
The assessment must also state whether “local” means residence, citizenship, ownership or place of production. These are related questions, but they produce different answers.
Missing information should remain visible. A calculation is more useful when readers can reproduce its supported components and identify what has not yet been established.
Ghana’s mining EITI report published in December 2025 covers 2023. It does not independently reconcile the 2024 figures discussed here. Those figures remain attributed to the Chamber’s reporting.
My methodology working paper proposes a general approach. It has not been peer reviewed and does not contain the Ghana calculation. A reproducible pilot, with independent checks, should precede claims of a verified country-level result.
Nor would such a measure replace assessments of environmental damage, public costs or community welfare. It would answer a narrower question about specified economic flows.
Every mine keeps a shopping list. Beside it, a country can build an account of what was purchased, where it was produced and who received the resulting income.
That evidence can help businesses identify investable opportunities and governments assess whether negotiated commitments are being delivered.
Africa is not poor. Africa is uncounted.
About the author
Dr. Richard Munang is Director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA), based in Accra, Ghana.
Sources
- Ghana Chamber of Mines, President’s address, 30 May 2025, sections “Performance of Ghana’s Mining Industry in 2024” and “Expenditure of Revenue by Member Companies”.
- Ghana News Agency, Ghana launches standards to boost local grinding media manufacturing, 24 April 2026.
- Business & Financial Times, Mining industry highlights US$92m local manufacturing opportunity, 24 April 2026.
- Ghana Minerals Commission, From Import Dependency to National Standards: Strengthening Ghana’s Mining Value Chain.
- Ghana 2023 EITI Report, Mining, published December 2025.
- Richard Munang, Counting What Africa Keeps: A Field Method for Measuring Value Retention, Jobs and Circulation from Natural Resource Conversion, from Community to Continent, version 1.4, published 25 August 2026. Methodology preprint; not peer reviewed.
