When the history of Ghana’s remarkable economic turnaround is written, the period between 2024 and 2026 will stand out. Inflation has collapsed from a punishing 23.8 percent in December 2024 to just 3.2 percent in March 2026. The economy grew by a robust 6.0 percent in 2025. The Monetary Policy Rate has been slashed from a crushing 30 percent to 14 percent. By any measure of price stability and growth, the news is good.
Yet behind these impressive numbers lies an uncomfortable question: the very institution that engineered this recovery, the Bank of Ghana, is financially broken. And fixing it will cost every Ghanaian, one way or another, for years to come.
A close reading of the Bank’s newly released 2025 financial statements, prepared on 29 April 2026, reveals the full scale of the damage. The central bank’s total equity, the difference between what it owns and what it owes, stands at a staggering negative GH¢96.3 billion. That is not a typo. The Bank of Ghana, the guardian of our currency, has a balance sheet that is deeply underwater.
How did we get here? The answer is both simple and troubling. The Bank of Ghana has, in effect, spent itself into a deep financial hole in order to rescue the economy from runaway inflation. Its primary weapon has been Open Market Operations, the process of selling high interest securities to commercial banks to mop up excess money in the system. In 2025 alone, the interest cost of these operations reached a staggering GH¢16.7 billion, nearly double the GH¢8.6 billion spent the year before.
To put that number in perspective, GH¢16.7 billion is roughly equivalent to the entire budget of some government ministries combined. It is money the central bank has paid out to commercial banks, essentially as the price of controlling inflation. The strategy worked. Inflation is down, the currency has stabilised, and businesses can plan again. But the central bank itself has been left financially crippled.
A large one off gold sale provided a lifeline. The Bank sold 869,915 ounces of refined gold in 2025, generating proceeds of roughly US$3.6 billion and booking a gain of GH¢9.57 billion. Without this windfall, the reported loss of GH¢15.63 billion for the year would have been far worse. Even so, the Bank still recorded a total comprehensive loss, including exchange rate movements on its foreign reserves, of GH¢34.95 billion.
The Bank’s management is keen to point out that despite these frightening numbers, the institution remains what they call “policy solvent.” This means its core income can still cover the direct costs of its monetary policy operations. They calculate this surplus at GH¢5.5 billion for 2025, a significant improvement over the GH¢794 million recorded in 2024.
Technically, they may be right. A central bank is not like a commercial bank. It cannot become insolvent in the traditional sense because it can always create cedis to meet its local currency obligations. But this argument, while legally sound, misses the practical reality. A central bank that finances its own operations by printing money is a central bank that is fuelling the very inflation it is supposed to fight. We cannot celebrate the defeat of inflation while quietly laying the groundwork for its return.
So what happens next? The Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bank, and Parliament has passed the Bank of Ghana (Amendment) Act, 2025, which commits the state to recapitalise the central bank. The plan is to inject capital in phases between now and 2032, with the goal of restoring positive equity by the end of that period.
This is where the bill lands on the doorstep of every Ghanaian. Recapitalising the Bank of Ghana will require the Government to transfer either cash or interest bearing bonds to the central bank. Those bonds must be serviced. That money must come from somewhere. It will come from taxpayers, either through higher taxes, reduced public spending, or more government borrowing that crowds out private investment.
Ghanians are, in effect, being asked to pay for the successful fight against inflation. The alternative, leaving the Bank to print its way out of trouble, would be catastrophic. It would destroy the hard won gains of the last two years and plunge the country back into a cycle of rising prices and a collapsing currency. Nobody wants that.
But Ghanaians deserve an honest conversation about what this recapitalisation means. Every cedi the Government transfers to the Bank of Ghana is a cedi that cannot go to building roads, equipping hospitals, funding schools, or supporting vulnerable citizens. The trade off is real and it will be felt over the next seven years.
There is also a risk that the recovery proves fragile. The improved “policy solvency” figure for 2025 depends heavily on the gold sale windfall, which cannot be repeated every year. If inflation proves stubborn, if the currency comes under renewed pressure, or if global interest rates remain high, the Bank could easily slide back into a position where its core income no longer covers its costs. That would require even more taxpayer support, or worse, a temptation to abandon the zero financing agreement with the Government.
The current economic trajectory is encouraging. Inflation is low, growth is solid, and the IMF programme, now extended to August 2026 for technical reasons, has provided a crucial anchor of discipline. But this success was purchased at an enormous cost that the country has not yet fully paid and that cost is now sitting on the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet.
As the IMF programme draws to a close and the Government’s need to issue bonds for the recapitalisation begins to push the debt to GDP ratio back toward 53 percent, we will face a critical test. Can we maintain the fiscal discipline that brought us this far? Can we recapitalise the central bank without undermining the very stability we have fought to achieve?
The Bank of Ghana has done its job. It has tamed inflation at great cost to its own financial health. Now the Government, and by extension every Ghanaian citizen, must pick up the bill. How we manage that obligation, honestly, transparently, and sustainably, will determine whether the current recovery endures or proves to be another false dawn.
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