In its 5th review of Ghana’s ongoing IMF programme, the Fund disclosed that losses from the artisanal and small scale doré gold transactions under the programme had reached $214 million by the end of September 2025. 

At current exchange rates, this amounts to about ₵2.43 billion.

As the IMF noted, “In 2025 through end Q3, losses from the artisanal and small scale doré gold transactions component of G4R have reached US$214 million (0.2 percent of GDP), mostly on trading losses but also on GoldBod off takers’ fees.”

While GoldBod itself has indeed recorded profits, those gains have come at the expense of the central bank, which has absorbed the bulk of the losses generated by the programme. 

The IMF has warned that this arrangement poses risks to the Bank of Ghana’s financial position, stating plainly that “the domestic gold purchase programme poses risks to the financial sustainability of the BoG.”

Understanding how these losses emerged requires a closer look at how GoldBod operates. 

When the Gold Board was established, its initial business model was to act as the sole buyer and exporter of gold from Ghana’s small scale mining sector. 

It was to be funded by a $279 million revolving fund provided in the 2025 budget. That model has since changed. 

By the end of September 2025, GoldBod had not received the budgeted funds and now operates primarily as an intermediary. 

According to the Ministry of Finance, the Board now collects funds for gold purchases conducted on behalf of clients, including the Bank of Ghana, and earns revenue through service charges and fees for assays conducted prior to export.

In practice, this shift has placed the Bank of Ghana at the centre of GoldBod’s financing. 

The Bank had already launched a domestic gold purchase programme in June 2021, partnering with the Precious Minerals Marketing Company, now GoldBod, to buy gold doré from local miners in cedis, refine it abroad for Ghana’s reserves or sell it and add the foreign exchange proceeds to reserves. 

This programme was branded Gold for Reserves. What exists today is effectively an expanded version of that arrangement.

According to the Bank of Ghana, it supports GoldBod’s operations through two main channels. 

In the first, the Bank collects cedis from commercial banks and forwards the funds to the Gold Board to purchase gold from small scale miners. The gold is then sold and the dollar proceeds are returned to the Bank, which supplies the commercial banks with foreign exchange. 

In the second channel, the Bank uses “high powered money” to purchase gold directly from GoldBod. The gold is either sold for foreign exchange, which is added to reserves, or refined and added to Ghana’s gold holdings. 

The core source of the losses lies in how GoldBod prices gold purchases and sales. 

GoldBod buys gold from small scale miners at the prevailing world market price. In some cases, it pays above the spot price in an effort to discourage smuggling. 

The gold purchased, however, is unrefined. When Ghana exports this gold, it does not receive the full world market price. 

This is because gold doré typically trades at a discount to account for refining, assay risk, transport, and financing costs.

Data tracked by JoyNews Research using official figures from the Bank of Ghana show that Ghana has historically sold its gold at a discount of 3% to 5% on the international market. 

In October 2025, for example, the average world price of gold was $4,054 per ounce, yet Ghana realised about $3,919 per ounce. That represents a shortfall of roughly $135 per ounce, or about 3%.

In practical terms, this means that GoldBod buys gold from miners at $4,054 per ounce and sells it internationally at $3,919 per ounce. That price difference alone generates a loss. 

On top of this, the Bank pays GoldBod a 0.5% ad valorem service fee and a 0.258% assay fee. 

To date, according to data from GoldBod, the Bank of Ghana has paid GoldBod more than ₵827 million in total charges. 

When trading losses and service fees are combined, losses become almost unavoidable for the Bank of Ghana. 

This outcome runs counter to the original logic of the GoldBod model. 

When the Gold Board was proposed, the assumption was that gold would be purchased from miners at a discount, allowing the margin and service fees to cover operational costs. 

As the CEO of GoldBod, Sammy Gyamfi, said on JoyNews’ PM Express on March 25, 2025, before GoldBod became operational, “nobody buys gold at spot price…Since time immemorial, since we were born or since Ghana became Ghana, everybody buys gold at a discount. The discount must be fair.”

Buying gold at a premium and selling it at a discount is mathematically unsustainable. 

Under the current structure, GoldBod avoids the trading losses by transferring the financial burden to the central bank. 

The Board collects fees and licensing income while the Bank of Ghana absorbs both the trading losses and the balance sheet risk.

Goldbod has delivered short term macroeconomic benefits. Ghana has generated over $10 billion in foreign exchange through gold exports, supporting the cedi, strengthening reserves and helping to meet debt service obligations while containing inflation. 

• Read also: Analyzing Bank of Ghana’s $10bn forex intermediation in 2025 

However, the IMF has cautioned that this financing model cannot be sustained indefinitely.

As the Fund put it, “Losses from the domestic gold purchase programme and GoldBod’s activities should not be borne by the central bank.”

Looking ahead, the structure of the programme may change.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of GoldBod, the Board is expected to fully take over the artisanal and small scale gold trading programme from January 2026, meaning GoldBod would no longer operate as an intermediary for the Bank of Ghana.

Under this arrangement, GoldBod would be responsible for purchasing, trading and selling gold directly, with no fee obligations to the central bank.

However, further clarity is still required on how this new model will operate in practice.

Questions remain over whether central government will finally release the $279 million revolving fund allocated in the 2025 budget and, most importantly, whether GoldBod will move away from buying gold at spot prices or premiums.

Until these issues are resolved, it remains unclear whether the underlying sources of the current losses will be fully addressed.

Unless Ghana resolves the contradiction of paying miners full world market prices while exporting gold at a discount, the cost of maintaining the programme will continue to surface somewhere in the system.

For now, that cost sits squarely on the balance sheet of the central bank.

This significant loss is primarily attributed to an increase in total interest expenses on its open market operations.

During the period under review, these expenses surged by GH₵6.7 billion.

This GH₵10.50 billion loss is, however, a substantial improvement compared to the GH₵60.9 billion loss the Central Bank reported in 2022 following the impairment of its holdings of marketable government stocks and non-marketable instruments during the domestic debt exchange program.

The Bank explained that the rise in expenses was necessary to manage the economy’s excess liquidity.

It was also meant to support the disinflation process as part of the broader macroeconomic adjustment programme.

The Bank of Ghana and its subsidiaries had total liabilities surpassing total assets by GH₵65.36 billion as of December 31, 2023.

The total operating expenses for 2023 were GH₵19.2 billion, a significant decrease from the GH₵66.9 billion recorded in 2022.

This reduction is attributed to lower impairment charges on loans and advances and the Bank’s holdings of Government of Ghana securities.

The Bank of Ghana further explains that “this Open Market Operations activity, which accounted for a major portion of the loss incurred, yielded positive results.”

The Bank of Ghana’s 2023 Annual Report and Financial Statement revealed that “the aggressive mopping up operations, contributed to slowing down inflation to 23.2 per cent by the end of 2023, significantly down from the rate of 54.1 per cent at the end of 2022.”

According to the report, no funds were allocated for reserve appropriation, as the reserve amount was in deficit as of December 31, 2023.

The Central Bank promptly added a note on policy solvency, emphasizing its ability to generate sufficient realized income to cover the costs associated with conducting monetary policy operations.

In the opinion of the Board of Directors and Management, the policy solvency outcome for 2023 is consistent with the perspective held in 2022.

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This week, hundreds of protestors took to the streets in the capital Accra, calling on the Governor of the Bank of Ghana and his two deputies to resign over the loss of about GHc60b Ghanaian cedis ($5.2bn; £4.3bn) in the 2022 financial year.

The demonstration, dubbed #OccupyBoG, was led by the opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The protestors, dressed in red shirts, scarfs, and berets, chanted songs and held banners – some reading “Stop the looting, we are suffering”.

The opposition claims the bank printed money illegally to lend to the government, leading to the depreciation of the currency and crippling inflation.

It has also criticized the bank for spending more than $762,000 on domestic and foreign travel, an 87% increase on the previous year, and $250m on a new office building. The opposition says these figures are recorded in an internal audit.

The NDC has accused the Central Bank Governor, Dr. Ernest Addison, of recklessness and mismanagement. And while the bank has been accused of mismanagement in the past, a loss of this magnitude is unprecedented.

“We have never seen anything like this in our history. If the Bank of Ghana wants to recover from this loss… it will take them more than 45 years,” says economist Professor Godfred Bokpin, from the University of Ghana.

The bank denies charges of mismanagement and says the losses were a result of a fluctuating exchange rate and because of non-payment of loans by state institutions.

It also says the government’s decision to borrow $700m from it and not pay it back in full has contributed to the crisis.

The bank’s Governors have also been accused of fanning rampant inflation and economic hardship by their actions. “The time when they were printing billions for the government, didn’t they know that it will have repercussions?” asks lawyer Martin Kepbu.

Why has this happened?

Ghana is currently going through its worst economic crisis in a generation. Last year, the inflation rate hit a record high of 54% – and is still running at more than 40%. Multiple credit rating agencies have downgraded the nation, preventing it from borrowing money internationally.

By September 2022, Ghana’s total debt had surged to $55bn. This meant the government needed in excess of 70% of its income to service the debt, something it was unable to do. It subsequently defaulted on much of its debt payments.

The government was forced to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance. To secure a $3bn bailout earlier this year, the government had to agree to fulfil a number of requirements.

The most important of these was to reduce the nation’s debt interest payments to a manageable level by 2028. This would leave them with enough funds to run the economy.

To achieve this, Ghana’s government began debt restructuring by renegotiating terms with its creditors, proposing lower interest rates on their loans and longer repayment terms to relieve pressure on public finances.

However, some creditors refused to take part in this debt exchange programme.

On August 9, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) issued a statement saying the government had told it that it didn’t have enough money to meet the IMF’s requirement and consequently would not repay half of the $700m it had borrowed from the bank.

Instead, the money would go towards the debt restructuring. It also said it would not pay any interest due to the bank.

The bank is the lender of last resort and experts say its status has been abused by the government, led by President Nana Akufo-Addo, and the rules of the bank have been broken.

“The Bank of Ghana Act is very clear that printing money or financing the government is limited to 5% of the previous year’s fiscal revenue, which means that in principle supporting the government is not a crime but doesn’t go beyond 5%,” says Professor Bokpin.

The bank’s officials are mandated by law to report to parliament if the 5% threshold is exceeded. A failure to report could lead to a fine or a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years.

Implications for the bank

None of this means the Bank of Ghana has gone broke. It is not a commercial bank that has to make a profit, so the loss should not affect its routine operations and as the lender of last resort it can always create its own money.

But according to experts, the Central Bank’s loss has significant ramifications.

It undermines the moral authority of the bank to supervise Ghana’s Commercial banks. It also damages confidence in the country’s financial system.

Although other Central Banks around the world have faced similar challenges, the difference in Ghana is the amount of money lost compared with the size of the economy.

In the UK, the Bank of England will be making a net loss of about $180bn over the next 10 years which will be funded by the UK government. But the size of the UK economy is in the trillions of dollars.

Bright Simons, a Ghanaian social innovator and writer, says that the bank cannot compare its losses with those of other countries. “Their attempt to deflect blame and point to losses by other Central Banks doesn’t make sense as the scale of their losses far outstrips those of other peer banks.

“A lot of the mess is down to the bank’s accommodative stance on the government’s loose fiscal policy,” he says.

In other words, by creating money the bank has allowed the government to live beyond its means.

Human Impact

A World Bank report last month estimated that 850,000 Ghanaians have drifted into poverty because of high inflation.

Ghanaians’ incomes have been eroded, affecting their purchasing power. The prices of food, fuels, and utilities remain high, and many households are struggling to make ends meet.

And on top of all that, the Central Bank is now under scrutiny from both within the country and the IMF.

Under the terms of the IMF loan, if the government demands more bailouts, the bank will have no choice but to refuse.

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The Bank of Ghana revealed in its Annual Report and Financial statements that it recorded a loss of GH¢60.8 billion in 2022. 

On the back of this, the minority in parliament has called for the resignation of the BoG Governor alongside his two deputies, over the bank’s ‘insolvency’ and ‘mismanagement’.

But addressing the press on Monday, August 21, 2023, he explained that his assertion that the loss will not affect the bank’s operation was validated by the International Monetary Fund’s Technical Assistance mission before granting the bailout.

“It is worth noting that Central Banks are not commercial banks. Bank of Ghana’s current financial condition will not impact negatively on the operations of the Bank,” he stated.

According to him, the IMF declared the bank “was policy solvent and would remain so, as it had enough income to cover monetary policy operational costs.”

He added that at that time, the bank had sufficient capital amounting to about 15 per cent of its total liabilities, therefore, the IMF recommendation was for the Bank to retain all profits and a reassessment should be made in 2027.

According to Dr Addison, BoG will also manage to reduce its operational costs during this period – 2023.

He further explained that the loss the bank recorded last year were technical losses arising from the “haircut and the application of accounting standard (in particular IFRS 9) to estimate credit losses over the tenure of the government dealt by Bank of Ghana.”

According to him, the financial loss was not money lost by the bank through its operations in 2022.

“Rather, one should look at this as the reflection of the total cost of the economic and social crises that the country has faced over the years and an attempt to resolve a major structural problem of the Ghanaian economy,” he added.

He added that the loss recorded by the bank is not the first time since the bank has gone into negative equity, according to historical financial statements.

According to Dr Addison, in the period of 2017, and 2018, BoG incurred similar negative equity from the impairment of legacy liquidity support loans granted in 2015 and 2016 to insolvent banks.

He stated that the external auditors were impaired due to the uncertain prospects of recovering from those insolvent banks. However, the bank recovered and generated profits from 2019 to 2021.

“During the early years of structural adjustment, very large exchange rate depreciations led to revaluation losses that drove the Bank into negative Equity.

“Indeed, anytime the economy faces major challenges, the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet suffers, and the equity position moves into negative territories,” he said.

The BoG Governor noted that in all its dealings, the Bank acted within the applicable laws, adding that it is not true that the Bank of Ghana has been providing financing for the government every year.

“There has been zero financing in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. The Bank of Ghana has only had to support in the pandemic year of 2020 and the crisis year of 2022.”

“The Bank of Ghana Act (612), as amended, limits financing of Government to 5 percent of previous year’s tax revenue. This provision in the law has been adhered to since I took office in April 2017.

“Between 2017 and 2019, in addition to the requirements of the Bank of Ghana Act (612), as amended, the Bank signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Finance to even impose a tighter restriction of zero central bank financing, and this was observed strictly, even though MOUs are not legally binding. Between 2012 and 2015, the Bank of Ghana provided overdraft to finance government and Cocobod every year. And there was neither a pandemic nor a global economic crisis,” he explained.

“When Ghana was hit with Covid-19 in 2020, Section 30(6) of the Bank of Ghana Act (612), as amended, was triggered, and as indicated earlier, the Bank purchased GHC10 billion worth of Covid19 bonds to support the economy through the pandemic.

“This was done within the applicable laws governing the Bank of Ghana. When section 30(6) of the Bank of Ghana Act (612), as amended, is triggered, it, allows the Governor, the Minister for Finance and the Controller and Accountant General to agree on a new limit of central bank financing.

The law further says that the Minister of Finance would then have to inform parliament, and the Minister has since informed parliament as part of his briefing to update Parliament on the IMF programme and status of the Domestic Debt Exchange,” he stressed.

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