Member of Parliament for Akwatia, Bernard Bediako Baidoo, has defended the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) against claims that the institution incurred losses cited in a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to him, the IMF report did not attribute the losses to GoldBod, but rather linked them to operations of the Bank of Ghana (BoG).

Speaking on Top Story on August 19, Mr Baidoo said the Minority had repeatedly claimed that GoldBod had incurred losses based on the IMF report but had failed to identify the specific section of the document that made such an assertion.

“What the Minority, led by the respected leader, has insisted over the period is that Gold Board had incurred some losses according to a report by IMF. Unfortunately, in all the discussion, he's not been able to point out the page, the paragraph where the said loss was actually mentioned in the said report,” he said.

Mr Baidoo said the reference to losses appears on page 10, under paragraph 13 of the IMF report, but argued that the document specifically attributes the losses to the Bank of Ghana rather than GoldBod.

He said the heading of the paragraph states that “DGPP operations have generated significant losses for the BOG, Bank of Ghana.”

According to him, the paragraph further discusses losses recorded in 2024, including a portion related to the government’s Gold-for-Oil programme.

He argued that the reference to the Bank of Ghana in the report makes it inaccurate to claim that the IMF had identified GoldBod as the institution responsible for the losses.

“If you look at it, there is no way in the said paragraph that the IMF ever said that the loss was a Gold Board loss, or was at their instance. They never said that. It is nowhere there,” he said.

The Akwatia MP accused critics of relying on the IMF report to tarnish the image of GoldBod and its leadership.

“At best, but for the fact that this whole thing was actually geared towards tarnishing the image of the young man who is heading the institution of Gold Board, nobody would have ever mentioned, or the IMF never mentioned that it was as a result of Gold Board's operations that led to the said losses,” he said.

Mr Baidoo maintained that the IMF report, as cited by the Minority, does not establish that GoldBod incurred any debt or losses.

He said any questions arising from the losses referenced in the report should instead be directed to the Bank of Ghana.

“So I will leave it as that, that even the report they rely on so much never mentioned that it was Gold Board that incurred the debt. They refer to Bank of Ghana. So there was no such debt with regards to Gold Board,” he said.