Economic analyst, Dr. Frank Bannor, has raised fresh questions over the losses associated with Ghana’s gold-purchasing programme, following his review of a 45-page International Monetary Fund (IMF) report.
Dr. Bannor said the report deserved closer scrutiny, particularly the disclosure in paragraph 14 on page 10 that GoldBod significantly reduced assay fees, service fees and other transaction costs during the first quarter of 2026.
According to him, the reduction brought the reported loss level down from about 14.5 percent to 11.4 percent within the first quarter alone.
He argued that the development raises an important question: If the costs could be reduced so substantially within such a short period, why were they so high in the first place?
Dr. Bannor said the figures could strengthen calls for GoldBod and the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to provide detailed explanations of the costs incurred under the programme.
He questioned whether the earlier costs were genuinely unavoidable or whether the structure of the gold-purchasing arrangements contributed unnecessarily to the losses.
“From the foregoing, the loss seems to be an ‘engineered one’, rather than a genuine one,” he argued, while stressing that the circumstances require further examination.
He said GoldBod and the BoG should explain the basis for the earlier assay fees, service charges and other transaction costs, as well as what accounted for their subsequent reduction.
Dr. Bannor maintained that the issue should not be reduced to partisan politics, arguing that the management of the country’s gold resources and the associated financial costs demand transparency and accountability.
He, therefore, called for a closer examination of the IMF report and the underlying transactions to establish whether Ghana could have avoided a significant portion of the reported losses.
