The Member of Parliament for Sagnarigu, Attah Issah, has defended the costs associated with the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), insisting that the losses highlighted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were part of the sacrifices required to restore Ghana’s macroeconomic stability.

He argued that the programme should not be assessed solely on the financial losses recorded but also on its wider economic impact, including rebuilding the country’s foreign exchange reserves, strengthening the cedi and reducing inflation.

Mr Issah explained that government recognised from the outset that stabilising the economy would come at a cost.

“We were very clear from day one that there was a cost attached to fiscal stabilisation. There is also a cost to economic growth and development,” he said.

He further maintained that the initiative aligned with the Bank of Ghana’s statutory responsibilities.

“The Bank of Ghana has two primary mandates. One is to ensure price stability, and the other is to ensure macroeconomic growth and development. Government of Ghana, through the gold purchase programme, believes that those two mandates were met,” he stated.

The lawmaker also dismissed suggestions that the programme’s benefits were superficial, arguing that falling inflation had delivered tangible gains for ordinary Ghanaians.

“If your inflation at a point was about 54% or 33.8%, now you are having about 5%. That is a savings in your nominal income,” he said.

Mr Issah made the remarks on Citi FM on Wednesday, August 5, while responding to an IMF assessment that the expansion of the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme resulted in losses exceeding $1.7 billion in 2025, equivalent to about 1.5% of Ghana’s gross domestic product. The Fund noted that although the programme became the Bank of Ghana’s largest source of foreign exchange inflows and reserve accumulation, the associated costs further weakened the central bank’s already negative equity position.

He also defended the exchange rate incentives and premiums offered under the programme, describing them as deliberate policy measures designed to channel gold through official systems and curb smuggling.

“The position should therefore not be reduced to just a line, Ghana lost money by buying gold, or something like, oh, the domestic gold purchase programme has landed the country into more debt,” he said.

“We deliberately inflicted this loss on ourselves so that we save smuggling,” he added.