The political battle over Ghana’s gold trading programme has intensified after Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) CEO Sammy Gyamfi challenged Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin to provide evidence showing where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) directly stated that GoldBod recorded or caused billions of dollars in losses.
Speaking at the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday, August 19, Gyamfi rejected claims linking GoldBod directly to reported losses under the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP).
He challenged Afenyo-Markin and other critics to identify the exact page, paragraph or section of the IMF reports where GoldBod is described as the institution responsible for the losses.
The controversy surrounds losses associated with the DGPP. The IMF’s own August 2026 paper says the programme generated significant losses for the Bank of Ghana, particularly as the operation expanded rapidly, while also exposing the central bank to quasi-fiscal risks.
Gyamfi argued that this distinction is critical.
According to him, critics have moved from saying GoldBod itself recorded the losses to claiming that GoldBod caused the Bank of Ghana’s losses. He insisted neither interpretation accurately reflects what the IMF stated.
Afenyo-Markin, however, maintains that the full financial picture cannot be understood by looking only at GoldBod’s audited accounts. He argues that significant costs associated with gold transactions were absorbed by the Bank of Ghana and therefore may not appear directly in GoldBod’s books.
GoldBod’s audited 2025 accounts, cited by Gyamfi, reportedly showed an operational surplus of approximately GH¢907 million and an overall surplus of about GH¢5.4 billion.
The dispute has now become one of Ghana’s hottest political-economic debates, with the Minority pushing for greater parliamentary scrutiny of the programme.
For Gyamfi, however, the challenge is simple: if the IMF specifically blamed GoldBod, critics should point to the exact words.
With both sides refusing to back down, the battle over who should ultimately bear responsibility for the gold programme’s financial costs appears far from over.
