The Minority in Parliament has stepped up its demand for accountability over the financial consequences of the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), insisting that the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) cannot distance itself from questions surrounding billions of dollars in gold transactions undertaken on behalf of the central bank.

Deputy Minority Leader Patricia Appiagyei said in a statement on Saturday, August 22, that the Minority’s concerns were not an attempt to undermine GoldBod but a legitimate parliamentary demand for transparency over the management of public resources.

Her comments come amid an increasingly heated exchange between the Minority Caucus and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GoldBod, Sammy Gyamfi, over the interpretation of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) findings on the programme.

The dispute centres on the financial cost of the DGPP, under which the BoG dramatically expanded its domestic gold purchases in 2025 as part of efforts to rebuild Ghana’s international reserves and support the foreign exchange market.

The IMF reported that the BoG purchased US$7.6 billion worth of gold through the programme up to August 2025, including about US$5 billion of doré gold from artisanal and small-scale miners. GoldBod was involved in the purchasing and related activities under the arrangement.

The Minority has interpreted the latest IMF findings as pointing to approximately US$1.7 billion in under-recoveries associated with the programme, equivalent to about GH¢22 billion at the exchange rate used in the current public debate.

Mrs Appiagyei said the sheer scale of the figures demanded more than political exchanges and denials.

She said the central issue was whether the public received value for the resources committed to the programme and whether the institutions involved had exercised adequate financial discipline, risk management and oversight.

According to her, the Minority would not be distracted by what she described as personal attacks and exchanges between the Caucus and the GoldBod CEO.

“The issue before us is accountability. It is about public money, public gold and the management of a programme that involved billions of dollars. Ghanaians deserve clear answers,” she said.

GoldBod's defence

Mr Gyamfi has rejected the Minority’s characterisation of the figures, describing claims that GoldBod incurred a US$1.7 billion loss as false.

He has argued that GoldBod’s audited 2025 financial statements show an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall surplus of GH¢5.4 billion.

The CEO has also maintained that GoldBod’s role in the 2025 arrangement was primarily to purchase, assay and export gold on behalf of the BoG, while the central bank retained responsibility for the trading and sale of the gold to off-takers.

Mr Gyamfi has, consequently, challenged the Minority to identify where, in the IMF report, GoldBod itself is accused of causing the US$1.7 billion figure being cited.

But the Minority says the argument over which institution technically booked the loss should not become an excuse for avoiding scrutiny of the operations that generated the financial exposure.

Who bears responsibility?

Mrs Appiagyei said GoldBod’s status as an agent or intermediary did not, in the Minority’s view, remove the need to account for how the transactions were executed.

The Minority has argued that GoldBod occupied a central position in the domestic gold market, with responsibility for buying, weighing, grading, assaying, valuing and exporting gold.

The Caucus therefore wants greater disclosure of the pricing mechanisms, discounts, premiums, fees, off-taker arrangements and other commercial terms underpinning the transactions.

It is also demanding clarity on the relationship between GoldBod and the BoG, particularly why the central bank should bear the financial risk where GoldBod was involved in the operational chain.

The Minority says those questions are especially important because the programme was undertaken with public resources and was presented as a key instrument for strengthening Ghana’s reserves and stabilising the cedi.

Beyond the politics

The controversy has now moved beyond the original dispute over the figures to a wider debate about the governance of Ghana’s gold reserves and the role of the central bank in commercial transactions.

The IMF itself has said that the DGPP helped rebuild Ghana’s external buffers. By the end of 2025, Ghana’s gross international reserves had nearly doubled to about US$11.9 billion, supported in part by strong gold receipts.

But the Fund has simultaneously urged Ghana to end quasi-fiscal activities and strengthen the institutional framework surrounding domestic gold purchases.

For the Minority, Mrs Appiagyei said that was precisely why the matter should not be reduced to a political quarrel between Mr Gyamfi and the opposition.

She said Parliament had a constitutional responsibility to scrutinise the use of public resources and ensure that institutions entrusted with national assets operated transparently.

The Minority, she added, would continue to pursue the matter through the appropriate parliamentary processes.

“The personalities may change, governments may change, but accountability remains. We owe it to the Ghanaian people to establish what happened to their resources and who must answer for it,” she said.