The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has dismissed allegations by the former Minority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, concerning the financial performance and operations of the state-owned gold trading institution.
Mr. Gyamfi described the allegations as “baseless” and part of what he characterised as a sustained campaign to discredit GoldBod and undermine its contribution to Ghana’s economic transformation.
Addressing the media at the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, the GoldBod CEO said the institution’s audited financial statements for the 2025 financial year directly contradicted claims that it had incurred losses from its gold-trading operations.
According to him, the audited annual report and financial statements prepared and published by the Auditor-General showed that GoldBod recorded an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall surplus of more than GH¢5.4 billion.
He therefore challenged Mr. Afenyo-Markin and others making claims about GoldBod’s alleged losses to produce evidence to support their assertions.
Auditor-General’s audit
Mr. Gyamfi further rejected suggestions that the Auditor-General did not have access to sufficient information to properly audit GoldBod’s accounts.
He said officials of the Auditor-General were given unhindered access to all relevant information and documentation required for the audit.
“All documents requested by them were supplied and all queries raised by them in their Management Letter were satisfactorily answered by the Management of the GoldBod,” he said.
According to him, the absence of an adverse audit finding in the Auditor-General’s 2025 report should settle the argument over whether GoldBod made operational losses during the year.
GoldBod rejects responsibility for BoG’s US$1.7bn DGPP loss
Mr. Gyamfi also rejected attempts to link GoldBod to the US$1.7 billion loss reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in relation to the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) in 2025.
He said the IMF report did not accuse GoldBod of causing the loss and challenged Mr. Afenyo-Markin to identify any specific section of the IMF report that made such an allegation.
He explained that the IMF attributed the reported loss to the scaling-up of the DGPP and indicated that the losses partly reflected valuation effects.
According to Mr. Gyamfi, the reference to GoldBod in the IMF report concerned fees paid to it in its capacity as a buying agent and national assayer, rather than an assertion that the institution caused the Bank of Ghana’s losses.
“GoldBod was only a buying agent”
Mr. Gyamfi explained that GoldBod’s role under the DGPP in 2025 was a continuation of the role previously performed by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC).
He said under a Gold Purchase Agreement signed between the PMMC and the Bank of Ghana in September 2023, the PMMC served as a gold-buying agent.
GoldBod subsequently inherited that responsibility and, according to Mr. Gyamfi, its mandate was limited to purchasing gold for the Bank of Ghana on agreed terms.
He said GoldBod accounted for approximately GH¢133 billion in advances received for gold purchases in 2025.
However, he stressed that GoldBod had no involvement in the subsequent sale of the gold by the Bank of Ghana.
“GoldBod had no role in the sale of gold by the BoG under the DGPP. It was not a signatory to off-take agreements under the DGPP in 2025. Neither was it involved in determining selling price or sale terms,” he said.
He argued that since the reported losses arose from the Bank of Ghana’s sale of gold, GoldBod could not logically be held responsible for those losses when it had no role in the sales transactions.
Fees paid to GoldBod
Mr. Gyamfi also disputed claims that fees paid to GoldBod contributed materially to the Bank of Ghana’s reported DGPP losses.
He said the fees consisted mainly of an assay fee of 0.258 per cent and a service fee of 0.5 per cent, amounting to 0.758 per cent.
According to him, the fees were legitimate charges for services provided and were not “free money” to GoldBod.
He explained that the 0.258 per cent assay fee was approved under the Fees and Charges Act and covered assay services provided by the national assayer.
The 0.5 per cent service fee, he added, covered costs associated with transportation, logistics, security, insurance, trade margins and smelting losses involved in aggregating gold from mining regions.
He argued that it would be unreasonable to attribute losses incurred by one corporate entity to another simply because the latter was paid a lawful fee for services rendered.
Exchange-rate valuation effects
Mr. Gyamfi further disputed the claim that GoldBod was responsible for losses arising from differences between the exchange rate used to purchase gold and the reference rate used by the Bank of Ghana for accounting purposes.
He said the terms governing the purchase price and exchange rate were already prescribed under the September 2023 Gold Purchase Agreement between the PMMC and the Bank of Ghana.
The GoldBod CEO noted that the IMF itself had identified the exchange-rate differential as a major contributor to the reported losses and described the effect as largely a valuation or translation effect.
He therefore questioned why GoldBod should be blamed for an arrangement that predated its establishment.
GoldBod trade model began in March 2026
Mr. Gyamfi also rejected claims that the 2025 DGPP losses were caused by GoldBod’s trading model.
He pointed out that although GoldBod was established in April 2025, it only commenced implementation of its own trade model in March 2026.
According to him, GoldBod received its revolving seed trade capital as late as December 30, 2025 and subsequently had to establish the necessary institutional systems before commencing operations under its own model.
He therefore maintained that the programme implemented by the Bank of Ghana during 2025 was the Bank’s existing DGPP model and not GoldBod’s trading model.
GoldBod dismisses funding concerns
Responding to claims that the Bank of Ghana had withdrawn financing from GoldBod because of losses, Mr. Gyamfi said the premise was incorrect.
He explained that funds advanced by the Bank of Ghana between January 2025 and February 2026 were for the purchase of gold under the Bank’s programme and did not constitute financing of GoldBod as a standalone business.
He said following the introduction of GoldBod’s trading model in March 2026, the institution received support for artisanal and small-scale mining gold purchases under an FX Intermediation Programme and a Forex Sale Agreement with the Bank of Ghana.
He added that from July 2026, responsibility for the baseline GANRAP implementation cost shifted from the Bank of Ghana to the Ministry of Finance.
Mr. Gyamfi described the change as a transfer of responsibility rather than evidence of financial impropriety.
He further disclosed that GoldBod had indicated that it intended to raise funds independently for its artisanal and small-scale mining gold purchases and said a pilot arrangement had already been successfully conducted.
GoldBod defends wider economic impact
While acknowledging the losses reported by the IMF under the DGPP, Mr. Gyamfi said the programme should be assessed in the context of its broader economic objectives.
He argued that the DGPP was introduced as a foreign-exchange and economic stabilisation intervention rather than a conventional profit-making programme.
According to him, the scaling-up of the programme contributed to an increase in Ghana’s international reserves from US$8.9 billion in 2024 to approximately US$13 billion in 2025.
He also linked the programme to the substantial appreciation of the Ghana cedi and the decline in inflation during 2025.
Mr. Gyamfi therefore maintained that the reported losses should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of criminality, misappropriation or financial mismanagement.
Challenge to Afenyo-Markin
The GoldBod CEO ended his address with a direct challenge to Mr. Afenyo-Markin to substantiate his allegations before Parliament.
He said he was prepared to appear before any parliamentary committee to answer questions about GoldBod’s financial and operational performance.
“I am ready any day and time to appear before any committee of Parliament to discuss the operational and financial health of the GoldBod,” he said.
He urged the media and the public to demand evidence before accepting claims about GoldBod’s alleged losses.
Mr. Gyamfi insisted that GoldBod remained focused on its statutory mandate of maximising national value from Ghana’s gold resources and said the institution would continue to account for its stewardship.
He maintained that the controversy should be settled through facts, audited records and evidence rather than political allegations.
