Ghana's $1.7bn gold loss: BoG, Finance urged to speak

A senior figure at Ghana's Asaase Radio has called on the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance to break their silence over a reported $1.7 billion loss linked to the country's Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, warning that the matter is a national crisis that cannot be left to one institution to explain.

Wilberforce Asare, Head of Legal and Political Affairs at Asaase Radio, made the appeal on The Forum, a political and current affairs programme, on Saturday 22 August 2026. His comments came as Ghana's parliamentary Minority continued to demand an inquiry into the reported losses, while GoldBod chief executive Sammy Gyamfi rejected attempts to attribute the $1.7 billion figure directly to the Ghana Gold Board.

Contents

01

A national issue involving public funds

02

IMF findings and the exchange-rate question

03

'Some quiet' from the institutions

A national issue involving public funds

Asare said the reported loss was a national issue involving public funds and required a comprehensive explanation from the government institutions responsible for the programme. He argued the matter could not be left to GoldBod chief executive Sammy Gyamfi to explain alone, because the programme involved transactions between GoldBod and the Bank of Ghana and, ultimately, the Government of Ghana.

IMF findings and the exchange-rate question

The International Monetary Fund has reported a loss of approximately $1.7 billion under the Bank of Ghana's Domestic Gold Purchase Programme in 2025. Asare said the reported loss had not been credibly denied by the institutions involved and therefore required an explanation of how it occurred.

According to Asare, the IMF identified several factors behind the losses, including service fees, assayers' charges, trading margins, off-taker costs and, most significantly, the exchange rate used in purchasing gold. The programme purchased gold using a foreign-exchange bureau rate significantly higher than the official interbank rate, a mechanism Asare said required particular scrutiny.

'Some quiet' from the institutions

Asare said there appeared to be “some quiet” on the side of the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance over the loss, and the public deserved a holistic answer on the programme, including the decisions behind the exchange-rate mechanism and the financial consequences for the state.

He stressed that the $1.7 billion gold loss should not be reduced to a political dispute between the governing National Democratic Congress and the opposition New Patriotic Party. “That money does not belong to the NPP or NDC; it belongs to the taxpayer,” he said, calling the loss a national crisis.

A fact-check by Team Mooove Ghana examined a claim by Abena Osei-Asare that the Bank of Ghana's 2025 financial report understated a US$1.7 billion loss from gold trading.

The article was published by Asaase Radio on 23 August 2026, written by Jonathan Ofori. Asare said the focus should be on which decisions led to the losses and which institutions should account for them, rather than allowing the controversy to become a political or personal dispute.