Bright’s uncle, like many in the region, had sold the family land to gold miners and promptly disappeared with the cash. In May, Ransford Abbey, the CEO of Ghana’s government-controlled Cocoa Board, reported that 50,000 hectares of cocoa farms were at risk from illegal gold mining, among other threats. In 2017, Akufo-Addo established an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining and a task force comprising 400 members of the military. Illegal gold mining was among the top issues for voters during last year’s presidential election. This year it created a Ghana Gold Board and opened the nation’s first commercial refinery, both intended to rein in the criminality and smuggling.