The Bank of Ghana (BoG) says it is unable to confirm whether the first consignment of oil received under the gold for oil deal was paid for in cash.

Some reports in the media claim the first tranche of oil was paid for with cash.

But answering questions posed by Ningo-Prampram MP, Sam George at the Public Accounts Committee, the First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Maxwell Opoku Afari explained that the BOG is more involved in the purchase of gold and not the oil. As such, he is unable to confirm.

Mr Opoku Afari stated that what the BoG can confidently say on the matter is the metric tonnes of gold it has bought.

“Honourable chair, I don’t have the full details for that leg of the transaction with me at the moment. What I know is that the gold for oil programme has two legs – it has the gold purchase programme leg and then the oil leg.

“The Bank of Ghana is fully involved in the gold purchase side which then translates into the oil. So I may have to go back and check how the oil side was transacted,” he said.

According to him, “what we [BoG] knows is that we have fully paid and bought gold that is enough to support the oil transaction.”

This, in his view, is “a conversion of our domestic assets to foreign assets”, adding that “it is being purchased at the World market price. We use the Bloomberg and the Reuters market price to purchase the gold.”