Ghana’s chiefs are often accused of enabling illegal mining. There is truth in that accusation, but also a buried story the nation refuses to confront. The state’s mineral governance structure, the painfully slow royalty distribution system, created a perfect environment where some chiefs felt pushed toward signing off their acceptance to galamsey, not simply lured by greed.
Under Ghana’s laws, chiefs may own the land, but the state owns what lies beneath it. In practice, this often means that mining concessions are granted from Accra, and chiefs learn of them in the days ahead or during exploration, that their land has already been allocated. Many traditional authorities recount experiences where a leaseholder arrives, papers in hand, informing them that the state has given their land to a mining company.
Their role then becomes agreeing to the project, and assisting their subjects to sign their crop compensation forms, then they watch their ancestral land transformed without their consent or power to negotiate benefit-sharing. Instead of being partners in resource governance, they are treated as enablers without a choice, on their own land.
Meanwhile the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL), mandated to release mineral royalties to stools, is known for delays, formula disputes and paperwork bottlenecks. Court battles and chieftaincy litigation adds to the delays and confusion, leaving communities starved of funds and chiefs unable to meet traditional obligations.
When this system collides with economic desperation and a rising global gold price, frustration brews, and, in some cases, chiefs turn elsewhere. The state calls it illegal mining. The consenting chiefs call it survival and “our fair share”.
And the evidence is visible. In Denkyira, a royal family challenged a paramount chief over customary violations, triggering a legitimacy crisis that affected stool resources. In Kwahu, stool tensions heightened regional instability, and the Regional House of Chiefs issued an injunction in the dispute. Also, the Ayanfuri chief openly complained about delayed royalties paymnet, while in Breman Essiam, a stool dispute escalated to the Supreme Court and stalled access to stool funds.
These cases are not fringe; they illustrate how royalty delays and chieftaincy litigation leave stools financially stranded.
Between 2014 and 2017, while gold prices were rising and formal royalties were delayed, galamsey moved from the fringes to the mainstream. During that period, chiefs and landowners, watched large scale mining companies cash in on higher prices of gold mined from their lands. However, they had to wait for years for their share of royalties. This enabled some of the chiefs to see informal mining as a faster, more direct way to benefit. At a time when the state system offered only bureaucracy and uncertainty, the Chinese had stash of cash in bags, ready to offer immediate cash, recognition, and a sense of control over one’s own land.
When a chief feels powerless in the formal system but respected by illegal miners who offer upfront royalties, the choice; while unlawful, becomes psychologically and economically seductive. The result is not noble, but it is understandable.
This is not to absolve wrongdoing. Chiefs who knowingly aid environmental destruction must answer to history. But stripping traditional authorities of meaningful power, delaying their rightful revenues, and then blaming them fully for seeking alternative income streams is intellectually dishonest and morally lazy.
If Ghana wants chiefs to be defenders of the land rather than reluctant participants in its destruction, three truths must guide policy: they must have a real say in resource decisions on their land; stool funds must flow efficiently, transparently and on time; and the state must treat chiefs as partners, not spectators in the destiny of their communities.
Until then, the real crime is not only galamsey. It is a governance system that forces custodians of our land to choose between legality and survival.