The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has rejected claims by the NPP Minority in Parliament linking the institution to the US$1.7 billion loss reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) in 2025.
Mr Gyamfi said the Minority’s attempt to attribute the reported loss to GoldBod was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the respective roles of the Bank of Ghana and GoldBod under the programme.
Addressing the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, he said GoldBod’s audited 2025 financial statements, prepared and published by the Auditor-General, showed an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall surplus of more than GH¢5.4 billion.
He therefore challenged the Minority to produce evidence from the IMF report showing that GoldBod had been identified as responsible for the reported loss.
According to him, the IMF report stated that the Bank of Ghana incurred losses of US$400 million in 2024 and US$1.7 billion in 2025 from gold sales under the DGPP, with the 2025 loss attributed largely to the scaling-up of the programme.
Mr Gyamfi emphasised that GoldBod was not responsible for the sale of the gold and therefore could not be blamed for losses arising from the Bank of Ghana’s sales transactions.
He explained that GoldBod’s role in 2025 was a continuation of the role previously performed by the defunct Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) as a buying agent for the Bank of Ghana under a Gold Purchase Agreement signed in September 2023.
Under that arrangement, he said, GoldBod’s responsibility was limited to purchasing and aggregating gold for the Bank of Ghana on agreed terms. The institution accounted fully for approximately GH¢133 billion advanced to it for gold purchases during 2025.
“GoldBod had no role in the sale of gold by the BoG under the DGPP. It was not a signatory to off-take agreements under the DGPP in 2025. Neither was it involved in determining selling price or sale terms,” Mr Gyamfi said.
He argued that since GoldBod neither sold the gold nor determined the selling price, it could not reasonably be held responsible for losses incurred from the Bank of Ghana’s subsequent sales.
Mr Gyamfi also rejected the Minority’s argument that fees paid to GoldBod contributed to the reported losses.
He said GoldBod received an assay fee of 0.258 per cent and a service fee of 0.5 per cent, representing a combined 0.758 per cent of the value of the gold purchased.
He explained that the assay fee was a statutory charge approved by Parliament under the Fees and Charges Act for services provided by the national assayer, while the service fee covered costs associated with transportation, logistics, security, insurance, trade margins and smelting losses involved in aggregating gold from the country’s 13 mining regions.
Mr Gyamfi said the same fees had been paid to PMMC and other aggregators under the DGPP before GoldBod was established.
He consequently questioned how GoldBod could be blamed for the 2025 losses on the basis of fees that were also paid to other buying agents in previous years.
He further disputed claims that GoldBod’s trade model was responsible for the losses, saying the institution did not commence implementation of its own trade model until March 2026.
Although GoldBod was established in April 2025, he said it received its revolving seed trade capital only on December 30, 2025, and therefore could not have implemented its new trading model during the period in which the reported 2025 DGPP losses were recorded.
Mr Gyamfi also rejected suggestions that GoldBod determined the off-take discounts applied to gold sales under the programme, stressing that the institution was only a buying agent and had no role in selling the gold or negotiating off-take agreements.
On the IMF’s explanation of the losses, he said the report identified, among other factors, valuation effects arising from the difference between the foreign exchange rate used to purchase gold and the Bank of Ghana’s reference rate used for accounting purposes.
He said such valuation effects were not evidence of criminality, misappropriation or operational losses by GoldBod.
Mr Gyamfi further explained that the Bank of Ghana’s financing arrangements with GoldBod had also been mischaracterised by the Minority.
He said funds advanced by the Bank of Ghana between January 2025 and February 2026 were for gold purchases under the Bank’s programme and did not constitute financing of GoldBod’s operations.
He said following the commencement of GoldBod’s own trading model in March 2026, the institution operated under a partnership arrangement with the Bank of Ghana, while responsibility for the baseline GANRAP implementation cost shifted from the Bank of Ghana to the Ministry of Finance in July 2026.
Effective August 2026, he said, GoldBod had indicated its intention to raise funds for its artisanal and small-scale mining gold purchases independently, in line with its statutory mandate to raise funds under the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140).
Mr Gyamfi maintained that the reported DGPP losses were the result of the policy design of the programme, which was introduced as a foreign exchange and economic stabilisation intervention rather than a profit-making scheme.
He said the IMF itself attributed the 2025 loss largely to the scaling-up of the programme, which he argued contributed to the accumulation of international reserves, the appreciation of the cedi and the decline in inflation.
Mr Gyamfi therefore challenged the Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, to substantiate his claims before Parliament.
“I am ready any day and time to appear before any committee of Parliament to discuss the operational and financial health of the GoldBod,” he said.
He maintained that GoldBod remained focused on its mandate and would continue to account transparently for its stewardship while pursuing greater value from Ghana’s gold resources.
By: Christian Kpesese/NR NEWS
