Executive Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), Dr Said Boakye, has challenged claims that the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) is making losses under the country’s gold purchase programme, insisting that the losses being reported are instead being incurred by the Bank of Ghana (BoG).
Speaking on Gold Morning Conversation, Dr Boakye explained that GoldBod operates as an agent in the gold purchasing arrangement, acquiring gold from producers and selling it to the central bank at a premium designed to cover its operational costs.
He said the Bank of Ghana had been purchasing gold before the current administration took office, stressing that the establishment of GoldBod introduced an intermediary into an already existing gold acquisition programme.
Dr Boakye had earlier addressed the issue at an IFS press conference in Accra on the 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review, where he sought to distinguish GoldBod’s financial position from losses associated with the central bank’s gold transactions.
According to him, GoldBod contributes only marginally to the BoG’s losses through the premium charged on gold supplied to the central bank. He identified two other factors as contributing to the losses: the discounted sale of gold to exporters to enable them to trade profitably on the international market, and losses arising from exchange-rate conversions.
He therefore cautioned against attributing the entire financial outcome of the gold purchase programme to GoldBod.
Dr Boakye pointed to the Bank of Ghana’s GH¢400 million loss from gold purchases in 2024, when volumes were comparatively lower and before GoldBod was established, as evidence that losses associated with the programme predate the current arrangement.
He said gold purchases increased substantially in 2025, attributing the rise in volumes partly to GoldBod’s efforts to curb gold smuggling and bring more transactions into the formal system.
Dr Boakye explained that as the quantity of gold purchased and subsequently sold increases, the financial impact of the existing pricing and foreign-exchange arrangements also grows.
He maintained that the central issue should therefore be how the Bank of Ghana’s gold transactions are structured and accounted for, rather than presenting GoldBod itself as the institution recording the losses.
Story by Ruth Quaye
