Ghana’s increased gold production has helped ease the country’s economic crisis by taming inflation and boosting the value of the cedi, says Gold Board CEO Sammy Gyamfi. In an interview with our editor, Steve Mallory, in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, he disputes a recent International Monetary Fund report which claimed the country’s Domestic Gold Purchase Program operated through the Bank of Ghana lost US$1.7 billion in 2025, dismissing that figure as an “accounting loss” resulting from the difference between the cedi’s actual exchange value and the lower official rate the central bank was required to use. Over the next year, he says, President John Mahama’s government plans to develop a local assaying lab, expand domestic refining capacity, and clean up environmental damage caused by illegal mining.
Q: The International Monetary Fund’s August 2026 Selected Issues report on Ghana indicates that the Domestic Gold Purchase Program, operated through the Bank of Ghana, faced losses amounting to approximately US$1.7 billion in 2025, which is roughly GH¢22 billion and around 1.5% of Ghana’s gross domestic pro-duct. Though the IMF did not directly accuse the Gold Board (GoldBod) of causing the losses, it suggested that some of these losses were linked to service fees to GoldBod, discounts on gold sold by GoldBod to off-takers, and foreign exchange valuation. Nevertheless, GoldBod’s audited financial statements, prepared by the Auditor General, show an operational surplus of about GH¢907 million and an overall surplus exceeding GH¢5.4 billion (about US$457 million) for 2025. Does GoldBod feel partly responsible for the central bank’s losses?
A: Well, first of all, the GoldBod as an institution has not made any financial loss. The GoldBod, as you rightly pointed out, posted an overall surplus of GH¢5.4 billion for the 2025 financial year. If you look at our core operations, we generated an operational surplus of close to GH¢900 million. The State Interests and Governance Authority has acknowledged that, and a report published by the Auditor General of Ghana, which is the constitutional body responsible for auditing state-owned enterprises like the GoldBod, has confirmed that. So any claim that the GoldBod has made a loss is contrary to the truth.
Second, the GoldBod has not in any way caused any loss, because the GoldBod in its operations for the 2025 financial year was just a buying agent for the Bank of Ghana under the Domestic Gold Purchase Program. And the GoldBod’s role was governed by a principal-agent contract known as the Gold Purchase Agreement between the Bank of Ghana and the defunct Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), which the GoldBod took over from.
The GoldBod only continued the agency role of the PMMC under that agreement. The GoldBod ensured that it stayed within the remit of that agreement. The GoldBod did not do anything that it is not permitted to do under that agency arrangement, and therefore it cannot be accused of causing or being the cause of any loss.
Number three, the issue at stake, which found expression in the IMF’s report on selected issues that you have referenced, has to do with accounting losses, book losses, largely accounted for by the spread between the forex bureau rate, at which gold was bought by the Bank of Ghana (BoG), and the BoG reference rate, at which the related proceeds were converted into Ghana cedis for the BoG’s accounting purposes.
That spread, according to the IMF, constitutes more than 50% of what is being reported as accounting losses, but I can tell you as somebody who is neck-deep in the management of these trading activities, that it constitutes close to 90%. So it doesn’t amount to the loss of money, the loss of cash, or the loss of state resources.
Q: But weren’t state resources used by the BoG to buy gold?
A: Yes. State resources were deployed by the central bank to buy gold. The gold was actually bought, and it was bought at the market exchange rate, the rate at which cash dollars are bought in the market. This is the rate charged by licensed forex bureaus regulated by the Central Bank of Ghana. It’s a legal rate, and that is the rate at which all non-bank transactions are done.
The Bank of Ghana did nothing wrong in buying gold at that rate. That is the rate at which gold has been bought since the inception of the Domestic Gold Purchase Program in 2021, and that is the rate at which gold has been bought for the decades that we have been trading gold in Ghana. Nothing different was done.
But you know that as a central bank, the accounts must be rendered in Ghana cedis, and therefore the foreign-exchange proceeds for the sale of the gold must be converted into cedis for accounting purposes. But in converting, they are not allowed to use the forex bureau rate, which is the acquisition rate for that forex. They are only allowed to use a lower rate. So that book accounting is what creates a difference, a gap that an accountant will call a loss. But it doesn’t amount to the actual loss of money, and we need to understand it in that context.
Q: So all the reporting about Bank of Ghana losses was wrong?
A: People don’t take their time to read properly and get the context before rushing to print or resorting to social media. But the true state of affairs is what I have explained to you. Now, if you put that aside, you are looking at an economic policy that delivered, according to the IMF and the World Bank, the most dramatic drop in inflation recorded in recent Ghanaian history. A drop in the inflation rate of 23.8% as at December 2024 to about 5.4% as at December 2025.
And you saw the Ghana cedi appreciate for the first time in decades. It didn’t only appreciate marginally, it appreciated by 41%. We saw a public debt, particularly external debt, reduced by more than GH¢100 billion. We also saw government external obligations coming down because the currency appreciated, inflation was low, public debt was reduced, and debt-to-GDP was also reduced.
Q: In effect, you are saying Ghana actually made savings amounting to billions of cedis?
A: Yes! In terms of the fiscal savings that the country made, it is in the billions. When you compare what is being presented as accounting losses, which as I have explained, largely, is occasioned by the spread between two exchange rates, that pales into insignificance.
You examine economic policies based on their benefits, their outcomes. You don’t just look at them from a strict, narrow accounting perspective, because the Bank of Ghana is not just there to achieve accounting profits. They are there to deliver important socio-economic benefits, key among which is price stability. That is their core mandate.
Q: So overall, what the Bank of Ghana did was beneficial to the country?
A: I am saying, don’t just look at what is being presented as accounting losses, look at the economic benefits. Look at the objects of that policy and ask yourself whether same was achieved, and you will come to the conclusion that same was achieved. Even if, assuming for the purposes of argument that we were to accept what the IMF is saying as being the total losses under the program, that pales into insignificance when it is compared with the program’s benefits to the Ghanaian economy.
Today we have had seven African countries coming to Ghana to learn from the Ghana GoldBod, to adopt the GoldBod model. Why? Because they have seen that it is a game-changer, and this is the way that African countries must use to assert their sovereignty over the beneficiation and exploitation of their natural resources. Ghana is leading the way, and we are proud of that.
The GoldBod has made no loss. The GoldBod has not caused any loss. Its role was limited to buying gold as a buying agent. It was not involved in the selling of the gold. And at all material times, the GoldBod acted within the remit of what it could do per its agent principle, which is a gold purchase agreement between the PMMC and the Bank of Ghana.
Even with regards to accounting losses that the Bank of Ghana recorded on its books, it is just a book-accounting loss. Largely, 90% of it was occasioned by the spread between the interbank rate, the BoG rate, and the forex bureau rate, and that does not amount to the loss of money.
I am saying, assuming without admitting, that you will even say that amounts to the loss of money, but look at the benefits. I mean, if you spent GH¢1 billion to bring down your public debt by more than GH¢100 billion, then that is sensible economic management. If you spend GH¢22 billion to bring the rate of inflation down, inflation is a very bad regressive tax in every economy, if you bring it down from 23.8% to 5.4%, then that is sensible economic management.
Q: Some say GoldBod cannot claim credit for the benefits of the Domestic Gold Purchase Program – such as the increase in the country’s international reserves from US$8.9 billion in 2024 to about US$13 billion in 2025, the 41% appreciation of the cedi, and the huge decline in inflation – while also distancing itself from the reported financial losses. How do you respond?
A: Well, the GoldBod was given a role previously performed by the PMMC, the antecedent of the GoldBod. And that role was to be a buying agent for the Bank of Ghana. Under that role, GoldBod is given money to buy gold on terms prescribed by the principal. Now the question is, did we perform that role effectively and efficiently or not?
So far, nobody has said that we didn’t perform that role effectively and efficiently, because from 45 tons, the total volume of gold that the buying agents of the Bank of Ghana were able to aggregate in 2024, the GoldBod as a buying agent did 104 metric tons in 2025, and we did that even with lower price incentives. So we discharged our buying agent role effectively and efficiently.
Q: So what do you mean exactly?
A: I mean talking about the establishment and deployment of the GoldBod task force that enhanced market compliance and plugged leakages; strengthened the fight against gold smuggling; the formalization of the gold trade through the new licensing reforms we introduced, which helped us to achieve competitive pricing; and effective aggregation methods. All these ensured that we are able to significantly ramp up the volume of gold that was purchased under the environmentally sound management component of the domestic gold purchase program. That is what the GoldBod takes credit for.
Q: Were there in fact buying agents before you?
A: Yes, there were buying agents before us, and they were given resources to buy gold just like us, but we were able to buy more than them because our systems were more effective. We were given cumulatively GH¢133 billion by the Bank of Ghana to buy gold in 2025. By the end of the year, we had supplied them gold worth GH¢129 billion. And the balance that we could not supply, we brought it forward to 2026, and we supplied it. We have reconciled our accounts. Not a pesewa that was given to the GoldBod for gold purchase, as a buying agent, was lost. Not a pesewa! We were able to deliver the gold.
The Bank of Ghana sold the gold, got dollars in excess of US$10.8 billion, which helped us to meet the market forex demand, ensuring forex market stability. The remainder went into building reserves, and that is one of the main reasons for the economic successes of the Mahama government that are being celebrated not only in Ghana, but across the world. So that is what we are taking credit for.
Q: By saying that, are you not shying away from responsibility?
A: There is nothing for us to shy away from, if you talk about accounting losses. As I have told you, those accounting losses were not occasioned by the mismanagement or incompetence or misappropriation or any recklessness by anybody at the Bank of Ghana. It is simply because by policy design, the central bank had to buy gold at market rates. But by policy design, the related inflows had to be converted at the Bank of Ghana rate, which is lower than the forex bureau rate. It’s as simple as that.
And when we explain this to you, we are not shying away from responsibility. We are just trying to tell you that there is no one to blame, because this is what had been done since the inception of the domestic gold purchase program by way of policy design. The bank didn’t do anything differently.
Q: Essentially, you are saying that the domestic gold purchase program was intended as an intervention for foreign exchange and economic stabilization rather than for generating profit. Is that right?
A: That’s it, because central banks don’t exist to be selling goods and services like an apampam store, as we say in Ghana, for the main purpose of making profits. Central banks are not retail businesses. You understand? They are there to deliver a public good. And what is that public good? Price stability. What underpins that price stability? A stable currency, which is very fundamental. Above all, they need to achieve a low rate of inflation.
That is what central banks are there for. In doing so, they are still expected to generate profits, so that they remain commercially viable. But the core consideration is not profits. You understand? It is why the central bank is the ultimate bank of resources, a last resort in any country.
So you are very right when you say that for the domestic gold purchase program, the goal was generating foreign exchange to support the economy.
In fact the program was reintroduced in 2021, 2022, at a time Ghana was facing extreme economic crisis. We had lost access to the international capital market. We could not borrow in dollars to shore up our currency. Cocoa was not doing too well. The currency was depreciating at about 54%. Inflation was at hyper levels. So we needed a certain emergency crisis solution, and that was the domestic gold purchase program.
So profit was never the consideration, and therefore, the policy was never designed for profit. It is why it never achieved accounting profits. But it achieved measurable economic profits, economic benefits, which far outweighed and still outweigh what is being presented as accounting losses, as I have explained to you.
Q: Now the central bank has transferred the domestic gold purchase program and all the risks that come with it entirely to the GoldBod. How is the GoldBod cutting total costs – currently 11%-12% of the purchased gold value when combining fees, discounts, and the forex spread?
A: No, no! no!! The Bank of Ghana has not transferred the domestic gold purchase program to the GoldBod. The IMF is the one that put that out, but we have had to correct it. We, at GoldBod, are not implementing any program called the domestic gold purchase program. That program was a policy designed by the previous government headed by President Nana Akufo-Addo. What the GoldBod is doing is just implementing a statutory mandate given it under the GoldBod Act of 2025, Act 1140. So we are just doing the job we have been set up to do. We are not continuing the domestic gold purchase program, because that program was designed in a certain way, which is totally different from the mandate of the GoldBod.
Q: So what is the GoldBod doing now?
A: The GoldBod is now trading gold in the proper sense of gold trading, different from what the Bank of Ghana was doing as a central bank to the domestic gold purchase program. So our pricing model, our off-take agreement model, and our gold sales model all differ from what pertained to the domestic gold purchase program. Currently, the GoldBod is solely responsible for the finances, the trade sits on our books.
But because the government is implementing a policy called the Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation program (GHANRAP) for the next three years to build reserves of 15 months of import cover by 2028, the government says that it will pay some amount of money to the GoldBod to cover the cost that it will have to incur to buy the gold that will help the government achieve its GHANRAP objectives.
That is why in the 2026 national budget, the government, through the Finance Ministry, allocated an amount of GH¢5 billion as GHANRAP implementation cost to support the operations of the GoldBod. But for now the entire transaction sits on the books of the GoldBod, and the GoldBod has already reduced the associated cost of the program from about 14.5% to now 6%.
The government bears 5% under the GHANRAP arrangement, and the GoldBod bears 1%. The medium-term plan is that by next year we would have brought the associated cost further down to 3% or 4%, and then by 2028 we would have totally eliminated it, if possible. So that is our arrangement.
Q: Is the GoldBod now involved in foreign exchange sales and auctions, as is being speculated, and does this align with GoldBod’s operational framework?
A: Well, the GoldBod does not do foreign exchange auctions. No, not at all. The GoldBod was set up to do three things: One, undertake the buying, selling, assaying, and export of gold. Two, generate foreign exchange for Ghana. Three, support gold reserve accumulation by the Bank of Ghana.
If you look at the second objective of the GoldBod, how do you generate foreign exchange for Ghana? It means you use cedis to buy gold, export the gold, and get paid the proceeds in U.S. dollars.
And what is the use of those huge amounts of dollars to the Ghanaian people when they just sit in our bank accounts? You can’t do anything with it, but it ought to be at the disposal of Ghanaians. So you have to sell it, and that is what every export earning entity in Ghana does, public or private.
Q: So essentially you generate forex from your gold sales, and then what?
A: When the GoldBod buys gold and sells gold and gets paid in U.S. dollars, we simply offload part of the proceeds to the commercial banks that we have bilateral relationships with, and part to the central bank for reserves accumulation. That’s not an auction. An auction is where entities will come and bid for dollars, and the highest bidder wins. We don’t do that.
We just get dollars and say: “These are our bankers. If you want to buy, this is the model. You apply and we sell the dollars to you.” We don’t auction the dollars. And this arrangement aligns with our Act because, like I said, we are set up primarily to generate foreign exchange for Ghana, and you cannot generate foreign exchange by retaining the dollar proceeds of your exports. You have to sell it.
That is what all the large-scale mining companies in Ghana do. When they export their gold and they get paid in U.S. dollars, they sell it to the commercial banks. So the GoldBod is just selling its dollars to its commercial banks.
Q: So the GoldBod doesn’t buy forex?
A: No. If you look at the work of forex dealers, they are engaged in buying and selling forex. It goes together, buying and selling. The GoldBod doesn’t buy forex. It only sells forex that it has generated from its export activities. We cannot buy forex, and we don’t buy. We only sell what we have generated because we were set up to generate foreign exchange for the country. And until we sell the forex we have generated, the country cannot have that foreign exchange.
When we buy gold and export it and are paid in dollars, we just give those dollars to the central bank to build reserves and to commercial banks to meet their forex needs. We are using a framework that is approved by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana. So we are not veering into the realm of foreign exchange bureaus, as some have suggested.
Q: Reuters reported that in August, companies licensed to purchase gold for GoldBod experienced delays in payments of up to three weeks, leading some operators to either suspend purchases or seek loans. Is this really accurate?
A: This is totally inaccurate, and we were very disappointed when we saw that reportage, given the considerable weight and reputation of that news agency. We have contacted their local reporters to publish a rejoinder, and we are yet to see that. That, I think, leaves much to be desired, because we have had no such challenges in the market.
If you look at our output, you will see that we are buying more gold in recent months than we have ever done in the past. If we are facing a liquidity crisis, that will not be the case. So Reuters got that information wrong.
They just had some disgruntled buyers in the market feeding them with lies, and then they went to town with it, without coming to us for our side of the story.
Q: So tell us the facts of the story.
A: The facts are that the GoldBod is not obligated to fund all its licensed gold buyers. The GoldBod is obligated to fund only its licensed aggregators. There are only two licensed aggregators in Ghana. Only they can receive direct funding from the GoldBod. No other licensed buyer qualifies. The thousands out there cannot. Their licenses do not allow them to receive funding from us. It is only the aggregators who have met the eligibility criteria to receive direct funding from a state agency like the GoldBod.
The key criterion is posting a guarantee, an advance payment guarantee, to secure whatever funding we are giving you. Only two companies have qualified for that. And those two companies are even overfunded by us. They are not underfunded. All the rest are supposed to draw their own funding support if they need it.
When you come for a license to buy gold, you are supposed to have a minimum amount of working capital that you yourself can deploy to buy the gold. But if you need some funding support in addition to your minimum working capital, you go to an aggregator, not the GoldBod. The aggregator has gotten money from the GoldBod.
Q: Can you explain that further, because it is very important for the public out there. You are saying apart from the two aggregators, none of the other licensed gold buyers are funded directly by the GoldBod?
A: Yes, they not are funded by us. They are supposed to fund themselves. And if it is inadequate, and if they are so minded to get funding support, they go to a licensed aggregator of the GoldBod. Then the licensed aggregator, at his own risk, must go through a certain due diligence process before he can advance money to them.
There are requirements that these Tier 1 and Tier 2 buyers must fulfill before the aggregators can give them money. If they don’t fulfill the requirements, the aggregator will not give them money, because it is public money, and it is subject to due diligence and a lot of checks and balances.
Q: Oh, so the money is public money? The aggregators loan public money to the licensed gold buyers?
A: Of course it is public money. The direct funding the aggregators get from the GoldBod is public money. So they give the money out after strict due diligence. The licensed gold buyers need to go and sign an agreement. The aggregators’ due diligence include assessing the licensed gold buyers’ creditworthiness. In some cases, the aggregators will require the gold buyers to post a guarantee or a bond. If they don’t meet the requirements, the aggregator will not give them the money.
Therefore, the fact that a licensed gold buyer doesn’t have money doesn’t mean that there is no money to buy gold. There is enough money to buy gold. Those who have met the necessary requirements are getting the money from the aggregators. We have had no liquidity challenges. Our program is going on very smoothly, and we are achieving all our targets.
Q: What significant achievements has the GoldBod realized thus far?
A: There are many achievements, and I will try to make it simple for you. The first one has to do with the quantity of gold we are able to purchase. Our objective is to make sure that we reduce to the barest minimum the leakages, the gold that leaves the shores of Ghana and ends up in Dubai, India, Hong Kong, Switzerland, without us getting the related proceeds because the smugglers don’t repatriate the related effects.
We have given ourselves a target to buy approximately 2.45 metric tons of gold every week. So far, so good. We are on track. If you look at the quantities we have done so far – that is, the quantities we did last year and what we are doing this year, we see incremental progress.
That means we are reducing smuggling, we are reducing the leakages, and we are mopping up more gold to bring in more forex to support the forex market stability, exchange rate management, and building reserves. That is the first point.
The second achievement of the GoldBod is that as a national assayer, we are transforming the assay regime. Even though Ghana is the leading producer of gold in Africa, for decades, we have not had an international standard assay laboratory that can conduct the golden standard of assay, which is fire assay.
We only do water density and XRF [X-ray fluorescence], which are all indicative. So this leads to a lot of purity losses in the artisanal and small-scale mining gold trade, and also revenue under declaration in the large-scale space.
Because as a sovereign country we do not have a laboratory that can accurately conduct fire assay and accurately determine the value of our gold, we are shortchanged by millions and millions of dollars.
Now, the GoldBod is making significant progress in correcting this by securing land for the construction of an international standard assay laboratory in Ghana. The drawings have been completed. The procurement process is almost coming to an end. All permits have been secured, and soon President John Mahama will be cutting the sod for the construction of this new assay laboratory, which is going to change the face of the assay regime in Ghana and reduce, if not eliminate, all the revenue losses that we suffer because we do not have this international standard assay laboratory.
Q: It is said that traceability of gold production and sales has never been achieved in Ghana for all these decades, is that correct?
A: Yes, traceability has never been achieved in Ghana, despite the fact that we have been producing gold for more than a century. Today it is very refreshing to know that the GoldBod is involved in a national competitive tendering process to acquire a traceability system that will help us trace all the gold we mine or buy to their mines of origin.
This will enhance the integrity of Ghana’s gold, particularly from artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASM), and enhance London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) market access for it, so that we can get better prices, and therefore more revenue for the Ghanaian people.
Another thing that I will talk about is our support for sustainability initiatives. Before the GoldBod, you never saw any state agency deploying internally generated funds into land reclamation to correct the ravages of illegal mining and what it has done to our environment. As I speak to you, the GoldBod is reclaiming about 50 hectares of the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve that was destroyed by the activities of illegal miners. Next year, the president has directed us to ramp it up to 150 hectares.
The GoldBod is also funding the rehabilitation of six Ghana Water Limited treatment plants across the Western, Central, and Eastern regions that were shut down or compromised due to river pollution by the activities of illegal miners. This year, we will rehabilitate three of them under phase one of the project, and next year, we will rehabilitate the remaining three.
We have also changed the regime on large-scale gold mining. We buy 20-30% in Ghana and refine it locally before export.
Above all, our greatest achievement has been transforming the value addition narrative. Upon taking office, it was disheartening to learn that despite being Africa’s leading gold producer, all of our gold was exported in its raw state. There was absolutely no value addition, whether from the small-scale or large-scale sector.
Under the direction of President John Mahama, and guided by his reset agenda, we have accelerated Ghana’s value addition strategy. By partnering with two local refineries – Gold Coast Refinery Company Limited and Royal Ghana Gold Refinery Limited – we are processing our gold locally to ensure that Ghana derives maximum economic value from its mineral resources before export.
Very soon, we will start implementing President Mahama’s African Gold Village initiative, which will create a hub for fabricating gold, silver, and other precious metals into jewellery, tablets, coins, and other ornaments in Ghana, just like the Dubai Gold Souk.