Over Godbold’s US$1.7 BILLION Operational Losses
The raging controversy over Ghana’s ambitious domestic gold-buying programme has taken a dramatic turn following the International Monetary Fund’s disclosure that the programme recorded losses exceeding US$1.7 billion in 2025.
The revelation has placed GoldBod Chief Executive Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, at the centre of an increasingly intense public accountability debate, particularly because of his repeated insistence that the institution has never made a loss and remains financially sound.
The issue is no longer simply about whether Ghana succeeded in accumulating gold reserves.
It is now about how much the country paid to acquire those reserves, who benefited from the transactions, how the losses arose, and whether taxpayers received value for money.
The IMF’s assessment raises questions that GoldBod and its leadership must answer with figures, documents and full transparency.
THE $1.7 BILLION BOMBSHELL
According to the IMF, the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme generated losses of more than US$1.7 billion during 2025.
The Fund attributed the losses principally to factors including service and assay fees paid to GoldBod, discounts granted to off-takers and exchange-rate differences.
The revelation is significant because the domestic gold-buying programme was presented as a strategic intervention designed to increase Ghana’s gold reserves, strengthen the country’s foreign-exchange position and support macroeconomic stability.
But the scale of the reported losses has triggered questions over whether the cost of achieving those objectives was excessive.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE NUMBERS?
Mr Gyamfi has been one of the most prominent public defenders of GoldBod and its financial performance.
the IMF’s accounting of the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme points to losses exceeding US$1.7 billion.
The IMF has made an important distinction: some of the reported losses represent accounting valuation effects rather than direct economic losses.
But that distinction does not make the issue irrelevant.
The Fund indicated that the losses still weakened the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet.
The IMF also noted that the reported figure did not include the cost of sterilising the reserves accumulated through the programme.
This means that the full economic cost of the gold accumulation strategy could be even more complicated than the headline US$1.7 billion figure suggests.
For a country struggling with debt, fiscal pressures and the rebuilding of confidence in its public finances, the implications are enormous.
THE SAMMY GYAMFI QUESTIONS
Mr Gyamfi therefore faces a series of unavoidable questions.
1. Why does the IMF report identify more than US$1.7 billion in losses associated with the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme while GoldBod maintains that it made no loss?
2. How much of the reported losses arose from fees paid to GoldBod?
3. What were the total assay, service and transaction charges?
4. How much was lost through discounts granted to gold off-takers?
5. Who approved those discounts?
6. Which companies or institutions benefited from them?
7. What was the average purchase price of the gold compared with the eventual selling price?
8. How much did exchange-rate differences cost the programme?
9. Were all these costs fully disclosed in GoldBod’s financial statements?
10. What mechanisms were in place to prevent excessive transaction costs?
11. Why should Ghanaian taxpayers bear billions of dollars in programme-related losses if the objective was to strengthen the country’s reserves?
12. What safeguards have been introduced to prevent similar losses in 2026?
THE BIGGER QUESTION
The debate must not be reduced to a political contest between the government and its opponents.
Ghana needs gold reserves.
Ghana needs foreign exchange.
And there may be legitimate strategic reasons for the state to participate in the gold market.
But strategic objectives cannot become a licence for financial opacity.
If the programme generated enormous accounting losses while simultaneously producing an operational surplus for GoldBod, the public deserves a clear explanation of the accounting architecture behind those figures.
The government cannot demand sacrifices from ordinary Ghanaians while billions of dollars in programme-related costs remain the subject of competing interpretations.
WHO PAID THE BILL?
At the heart of the controversy is one simple question:
Who ultimately paid for the US$1.7 billion?
Was it the Bank of Ghana?
Was it GoldBod?
Was it reflected in the country’s reserves?
Was it absorbed through valuation losses?
Or was the cost ultimately transferred to Ghanaian taxpayers through the public balance sheet?
The distinction matters.
Because when public institutions incur losses, the public eventually carries the consequences.
TRANSPARENCY OR TRUST DEFICIT?
Mr Gyamfi has built his public defence of GoldBod around the institution’s financial strength and its role in rebuilding Ghana’s reserves.
That defence will now be tested against the IMF’s assessment.
The appropriate response is not political rhetoric.
It is full disclosure.
GoldBod should publish the detailed financial and transaction data necessary for independent analysts, Parliament, civil society and the Ghanaian public to reconcile its reported surpluses with the IMF’s reported programme losses.
Until that happens, the US$1.7 billion figure will remain a huge cloud hanging over Ghana’s gold strategy.
And Sammy Gyamfi, as the public face of GoldBod, will inevitably be expected to provide answers.
THE GOLDEN QUESTION
Ghana may have accumulated billions of dollars’ worth of gold.
But the question confronting the country now is brutally simple:
At what cost?
And behind that question lies another:
WHO APPROVED THE DEALS, WHO BENEFITED AND WHO PAID?
Ghanaians deserve answers not slogans.
