Ghana’s Central Bank Lost US$1.7 Billion Buying Gold, the IMF Says

Western Africa · Central Banking

What the Ghana gold programme loss claim says

The Domestic Gold Purchase Programme is how Ghana buys gold from its own small-scale miners to build up reserves and support the cedi. Since 1 July 2026 the government, not the central bank, carries the whole cost of it. It has been widely credited, including in our own coverage, with helping to steady the currency through 2025.

Alexander Afenyo-Markin, Minority Leader in Parliament and member for Effutu, said in a Facebook post on Saturday 22 August that the programme lost roughly 22 billion cedi in 2025, which he put at about US$1.7 billion, citing the IMF.

He said his caucus will push for a full parliamentary inquiry. The questions he wants answered are specific: who the off-takers were, what discounts were applied to gold purchases, who authorised those discounts, what fees were earned.

He also wants the loss disaggregated between exchange-rate differentials and the spread between buying and selling prices. That distinction matters, because one is a market outcome and the other is a pricing decision.

Whose loss is it

The underlying dispute is institutional. The trading was done by the Ghana Gold Board, known as GoldBod, but the losses are recorded on the central bank’s books, according to the Minority’s account.

GoldBod’s chief executive, Sammy Gyamfi, rejects the characterisation and says the board’s revenue comes from legally approved fees. The exchange has become personal, with Afenyo-Markin threatening legal remedies over what he calls defamatory attacks.

The Minority’s position is that the ownership question is beside the point. Whether the loss belongs to GoldBod or the Bank of Ghana, it is public money either way.

It is worth being careful about what has actually happened here. Five Minority MPs filed a formal motion on 20 August asking the Speaker to establish an ad hoc committee. No committee has been constituted, and the Speaker is expected to take the motion when Parliament resumes on Monday 24 August. Parliament rejected a near-identical motion on 27 March 2026, on a voice vote.

Two IMF numbers that are not the same number

Readers will encounter a second figure and should not assume it is the same one. Agence Ecofin reported on 6 August that, according to the IMF, the Bank of Ghana booked about US$1.9 billion in operating losses in 2025 buying artisanal gold.

That is a different measure from a programme-level loss, and the two should not be merged or averaged. We have not opened the underlying IMF document and neither figure comes to us from the Fund directly.

The same caution applies to the currency. Afenyo-Markin gives 22 billion cedi and US$1.7 billion as the same amount without stating a rate, and the two imply roughly 12.9 cedi to the dollar, so the dollar figure should be read as his conversion rather than a market one.

So both figures travel here with their source attached rather than as established fact. That is the honest way to report a number that reached the public through a politician’s Facebook account.

Why a reserve-building programme can lose money

Buying gold to build reserves is not free, and losses are not by themselves evidence of wrongdoing. A central bank buying domestic gold pays in local currency at a discount to the world price, then holds or sells the metal.

Losses arise in two main ways. The buy-sell spread can be set too generously to the seller, and the exchange rate can move between purchase and realisation.

The reason a specialist would want the numbers split is that the two imply completely different remedies. A currency loss is a hedging problem, while a discount loss is a governance problem about who was allowed to buy at what price.

That is precisely the split the Minority is demanding, which makes the request harder to dismiss as pure politics than the venue might suggest.

What is actually at stake

This cuts against a story we and others have reported approvingly for months. Ghana’s gold-backed reserve build has been credited with a strong cedi and a visible improvement in the country’s external position.

For anyone holding Ghanaian paper or trading the cedi, the live question is now the quality of those reserves and the cost of acquiring them. A parliamentary process that disclosed off-taker identities and discount structures inside a state gold-buying scheme would be unusually revealing.

It also lands in a busy week for Ghanaian fiscal claims. Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson said on 22 August that debt servicing has fallen below 20% of revenue from over 50%, though he too made the claim on Facebook and specified no period.

Both claims were made on Facebook within two days of each other, and neither came with a published dataset. Until one does, both should be read as assertions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is the alleged loss?

About 22 billion cedi in 2025, which Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin puts at roughly US$1.7 billion, attributing the figure to the IMF. Neither the IMF nor the Bank of Ghana has been quoted directly.

What is the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme?

A Bank of Ghana scheme to buy domestically produced gold in order to build reserves and support the cedi. Trading has been carried out by the Ghana Gold Board.

Has an inquiry been launched?

No. The Minority Leader has said his caucus will push for a full parliamentary inquiry, but none has been convened.

What does the Minority want disclosed?

The identities of the off-takers, the discounts applied to gold purchases, who authorised them, the fees earned, and a breakdown of the loss between exchange-rate differentials and buy-sell spreads.

Is there a competing figure?

Agence Ecofin reported on 6 August that the IMF put Bank of Ghana operating losses on artisanal gold purchases at US$1.9 billion in 2025. That is a different measure and should not be merged with the programme figure.

This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error

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