Sammy Gyamfi and Alexander Afenyo-Markin
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has challenged the Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, to use Parliament’s oversight processes to invite him to clarify claims that GoldBod was responsible for GH¢22bn losses incurred under the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP).
Speaking at the Government Accountability Series in Accra yesterday, Mr. Gyamfi urged the Minority Leader to desist from discussing the matter solely at press conferences and instead, trigger a parliamentary inquiry into the issue.
He said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) already had the authority to invite him to explain GoldBod’s operations and respond to the allegations.
“There has been a call for a parliamentary probe, and I’ve already stated on public record that I’m waiting with bated breath for Afenyo-Markin’s invitation. I don’t know why he’s delaying and holding press conferences when, as Minority Leader, he can get the Public Accounts Committee to summon me tomorrow or today, and I will appear,” he said.
According to him, there was no need for a special parliamentary motion or an order from the Speaker before the committee could examine the matter.
He said a parliamentary inquiry would provide an opportunity for both the Minority and GoldBod to present evidence and establish which institution should be held responsible for the reported losses.
“I have, in all humility, reached out to the new Majority Leader in Parliament, Honourable James Agalga, and I pleaded with him that even if Afenyo-Markin delays in extending this invitation, he should extend the invitation to me, and I’m ready to come tomorrow,” he added.
“You don’t need any special motion; you don’t need any special order by the Speaker. Just get the Public Accounts Committee to invite us and come and sit down there and demonstrate to the whole nation where GoldBod made losses or how GoldBod is to blame for losses made by another institution,” he stated.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin has repeatedly called on GoldBod to account for the GH¢22 billion loss reportedly associated with the operations of the gold purchasing programme and referenced in discussions surrounding an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report.
However, Mr. Gyamfi maintained that the $1.7 billion loss reported by the IMF was linked to the operations of the DGPP and not GoldBod, which was established later to assume and streamline key functions of the programme.
He said Ghana recorded losses of about $400 million from gold sales under the DGPP in 2024, with the losses rising to more than $1.7 billion in 2025 following a significant expansion of the programme.
According to Mr. Gyamfi, the IMF linked the 2025 losses to the scaling-up of the programme, with service fees, discounts and foreign-exchange valuation among the factors contributing to the losses.
The GoldBod CEO said public commentary on the $1.7 billion figure had often created the impression that the IMF had directly attributed the loss to GoldBod, describing that interpretation as inaccurate.
He challenged those making the claim to identify the specific portion of the IMF report that attributed the loss to GoldBod.
“I want to read the relevant portions of the IMF report because, most of the time, you hear claims in the media that the IMF has said GoldBod made a loss of $1.7 billion. Yet, nobody questions which part of the IMF report actually says that,” he said.
“They say the IMF has stated that GoldBod is responsible for the loss, but nobody asks them to provide the evidence. We are all talking about IMF reports. Fact-checkers must get to work,” he intimated.
Mr. Gyamfi also referred to a government cost-sharing arrangement at the end of 2025 involving the transfer of bonds with a par value of $5 billion.
He said the transaction, completed in March 2026, resulted in a breach of the ceiling on the Bank of Ghana’s claims on the government and public entities at the end of December 2025 and March 2026.
He further cited the IMF’s reference to a July 2026 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the BoG, GoldBod and the government, which formalised the transfer of DGPP activities from the central bank to GoldBod.
The arrangement, he said, was intended to eliminate the related quasi-fiscal risks to the BoG.
The IMF also indicated that losses associated with the DGPP, together with the high cost of open market operations and exchange-rate valuation losses resulting from the appreciation of the cedi, had worsened the BoG’s negative equity position to 6.7 percent of GDP.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah