Busted: The Shocking Truth Behind GoldBod’s 2025 Financial Report
Ghana's Minority Caucus in Parliament accused the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) of losing GH₵22 billion in 2025. However, the truth behind the claim is far more complex.
Minority's Misleading Claim
The Minority Caucus, led by Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin, held a press conference on August 18, 2026, where they accused GoldBod of "losing 22 billion Ghana cedis plus in one year." They claimed this figure came directly from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A day later, GoldBod's CEO, Sammy Gyamfi, rejected the claim, calling it a "barefaced lie" and pointing to GoldBod's own audited 2025 financial statements, which recorded a surplus.
IMF Report Reveals the Truth
JoyNews Research obtained and read in full the two IMF documents referenced by both sides: the Sixth Review Staff Report (IMF Country Report No. 26/212) and its companion Selected Issues Paper (Country Report No. 26/213). The reports confirm that the Bank of Ghana's Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) did indeed incur losses of over $1.7 billion in 2025, equivalent to 1.5 percent of Ghana's GDP. However, the IMF reports explicitly attribute these losses to the Bank of Ghana, not GoldBod.
Whose Loss is it?
Paragraph 13 of the IMF Selected Issues Paper states that the loss was "a combination of service and assay fees paid to Gold Board, discount on gold sold to off-takers… and, most importantly, exchange rate losses from the spread between Forex Bureau rate paid to purchase gold and the CD reference rate used for BOG accounting." This quotation is accurate, but the Minority's framing is misleading. The IMF reports do not say that GoldBod caused the loss or that the loss sits on GoldBod's books.
GoldBod's Rebuttal
GoldBod's CEO, Sammy Gyamfi, challenged the Minority Leader to point to any page, paragraph, sentence, or phrase in the IMF reports that accuses GoldBod of causing the losses. Gyamfi argued that GoldBod was only a fee-earning buying agent for the Bank of Ghana's DGPP in 2025 and did not take over full ownership of the programme until April 2026. GoldBod's audited financial statements for 2025 show a surplus of GH₵5,443,990,347, up from GH₵185,342,031 in 2024.
The Bottom Line
The Minority Caucus's claim of GH₵22 billion in losses for GoldBod in 2025 is misleading. While the figure is real and correctly quoted from the IMF, it refers to the Bank of Ghana's losses under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, not GoldBod's own losses. GoldBod's CEO, Sammy Gyamfi, is correct that the IMF reports do not say that GoldBod caused the loss or that the loss sits on GoldBod's books. The controversy highlights the need for accurate communication and transparency in the handling of financial reports.
Source: Joy Online
