When the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) final week introduced by way of its monetary report that it had appraised a complete of 103.8 tonnes of ASM gold (value $10.8 billion) and 101 tonnes of large-scale gold (value $9.7 billion) in 2025, nonetheless ending the 12 months with a surplus of over GH¢5.4 billion, it definitely advised the story of a profitable nationwide establishment.
Established by the Ghana Gold Fee Act 2025 (Act 1140), this new company was established to oversee, monitor and undertake the acquisition, sale and export of gold and different invaluable minerals. It additionally aimed to advertise worth addition, help accountable mining, construct up the Financial institution of Ghana’s gold reserves and help international change technology.
It successfully changed the Valuable Minerals Advertising and marketing Firm, however with elevated monopoly energy over the commerce in gold and different minerals. GOLDBOD was to change into the only gold exporter within the nation in accordance with that legislation.
At face worth, this quantity indicated that state establishments completed their mission. Nonetheless, when these numbers are learn alongside the Financial institution of Ghana’s personal 2025 monetary outcomes, a really completely different story emerges.
The identical program that created the GOLDBOD surplus brought about the central financial institution to: Web loss 9.05 billion GH¢ – The opening within the already unstable monetary state of affairs will change into even deeper.
Administration historical past of GOLDBOD
GOLDBOD will probably be funded by a $279 million revolving fund allotted within the 2025 finances, which can enable the corporate to buy gold immediately from artisanal and small-scale miners by itself stability sheet and commerce it independently.
This funding didn’t arrive till December 2025.
Throughout the 12 months, GOLDBOD had no energetic buying and selling positions on its books. The corporate primarily acted as an middleman, amassing funds from the Financial institution of Ghana, going on-site to purchase gold on behalf of the central financial institution, and incomes service charges and commissions on each transaction after analyzing the gold.
The Financial institution of Ghana offered capital and absorbed losses for 12 months. GOLDBOD collected transaction charges and stored its stability sheet intact.
That is the construction that produced two utterly completely different monetary knowledge in the identical 12 months underneath the identical program.
IMF alert
Even earlier than the full financial injury was tallied, the IMF raised its flag.
Within the fifth evaluation of Ghana’s financial restoration program, the fund revealed that losses from synthetic gold and small-scale dore gold transactions have already reached 50 million yen. $214 million till the tip of September 2025 alone — about 0.2% of GDP — largely buying and selling losses, with GOLDBOD’s charges accounting for a small portion.
The fund warned that home gold buy packages pose dangers to central banks’ monetary sustainability and that these losses shouldn’t be borne by central banks.
Coverage design that was by no means balanced
Regardless of preliminary plans for a GOLDBOD revolving fund, the federal government and central financial institution continued the prevailing association, specifically the one which operated between PMMC and BoG underneath the now-defunct Gold-for-Oil Alternate Program. This system itself was discontinued in March 2025 because of the pressure on banks’ stability sheets, leading to a complete web lack of GH¢2.14 billion from 2023 to 2024.
Below this association, the Financial institution of Ghana offered international foreign money to PMMC on the official BoG charge to buy gold from small-scale miners. The issue was that miners had been being paid at unofficial international change charges with the rationale that miners wouldn’t settle for BoG charges.
The gold I bought was not refined bullion both. It’s uncooked dore and is traded on worldwide markets at a reduction to account for refining, analytical dangers, transportation and financing prices. The off-taker low cost provided by the BoG was initially 2.25% under the world market worth, however was later diminished to 1.25% within the last quarter of 2024 and additional diminished to 1.1% in 2025.
As well as, the central financial institution paid PMMC a 0.5% advert valorem service payment and a 0.258% evaluation payment on every transaction.
Banks purchased at a premium, bought at a reduction, and paid charges all alongside. Losses had been basically constructed into the design.
This association didn’t finish with the institution of GOLDBOD. It merely escalated. GOLDBOD turned the only exporter of ASM gold and inherited the identical payment construction (0.5% advert valorem payment and 0.258% analytical payment) till December 2025, after which they had been diminished to 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively.
Extra importantly, whereas the Financial institution of Ghana was promoting for much less, GOLDBOD was shopping for spot and typically above spot to discourage smuggling.
In response to knowledge from JoyNews Analysis, in October 2025, when world gold costs averaged $4,054 per ounce, Ghana realized $3,919, leading to a deficit of $135 per ounce.
So whereas losses had been anticipated, the larger query was all the time how a lot.
What the BoG’s full report reveals
When the Financial institution of Ghana lastly launched its books final week, the determine was not $214 million.
The web lack of the home gold buy program is GH¢9.05 billion For that 12 months.
However even that headline could not inform the entire story.
The three-month loss from the canceled gold-oil change settlement was GHF203.03 million, however the central financial institution GH¢21.89 billion In regards to the Dore Gold transaction with GOLDBOD. Thus, by way of its valuer position, GOLDBOD exported $10.8 billion value of ASM gold, which resulted in a price of GH¢21.89 billion, or roughly $2 billion, to the financial institution’s stability sheet.
In response to monetary experiences of each events, the central financial institution paid GOLDBOD greater than GH¢827 million in charges in 2025, whereas service charges alone amounted to just about GH¢560 million. Which means, excluding the federal government’s GH¢4.5 billion subsidy to GOLDBOD, roughly 82% of GOLDBOD’s 2025 income got here immediately from the Financial institution of Ghana.
Nonetheless, these charges had been a comparatively small a part of the full lack of GHF21.89 billion. The most important issue was the rate of interest hole, which was constructed into each commerce from the start.
Atta Isah, a Sanyarig lawmaker and member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, who broke the uncommon information of financial institution losses, sought to clarify the core mechanism.
“The Financial institution of Ghana offers GOLDBOD the funds to go and purchase gold. BOG buys in USD, which is a global buying and selling foreign money. Meaning they provide USD to GOLDBOD at, say, 10 GH¢ to the greenback. However you and I each know that after they go on the bottom, gold merchants won’t promote gold on the BOG charge. Due to this fact, the distinction between the international change market and the BOG charge displays the loss.”
Right here we’ll clarify a troublesome downside in an easy-to-understand method.
If the cedi was 10 GH¢ on the BoG window however 11 GH¢ within the international change market, for each 11 GH¢ given by the central financial institution to GOLDBOD, the central financial institution would obtain 10 GH¢ value of gold. When CEDI strengthened and paradoxically widened the hole between BOG and retail charges, banks paid extra for much less cash. This system then expanded dramatically, doubling volumes from 56 to 111 tons. This meant extra trades, greater variations, and larger losses.
Merely put, as GOLDBOD’s revenues elevated and export volumes elevated, BoG’s expenditures expanded and its capital decreased much more quickly.
The central financial institution assumed all foreign money danger, worth danger, and market execution danger. The fundamental commerce was structured in such a method that losses had been nearly inevitable.
Within the central financial institution’s earnings assertion, the gross lack of GH¢21.89 billion solely improved to GH¢9.05 billion after being partially offset by authorities cost-sharing interventions of GH¢5 billion and realized beneficial properties of GH¢7.9 billion from the sale of gold bullion reclassified from reserves.
Future course
GOLDBOD’s CEO introduced late final 12 months that the Board of Administrators will totally take over the artisanal and small-scale gold buying and selling program from January 2026, and the Financial institution of Ghana’s operations as an middleman will stop.
Below the association, GOLDBOD will probably be accountable for shopping for, buying and selling and promoting gold independently, giving it much-needed house on the central financial institution’s stability sheet.
Nonetheless, with all of the monetary danger returning to GOLDBOD, structural modifications are wanted to additional develop this system.
The apply of indexing native buy costs to international change charges slightly than printed market benchmarks must be reconsidered. The value of cocoa is linked to the BoG charge and farmers obtain accordingly. Gold can’t be handled specifically within the title of stopping smuggling. The price of smuggling ought to be made excessive by way of enforcement, not by paying costs above spot costs that hole out central banks.
Goldbod has been contemplating shopping for at a reduction not too long ago, however that call requires extra braveness. Considerations about market resistance and a short-term decline in export volumes are comprehensible. However the potential financial prices far outweigh the non permanent drop in numbers. Provided that this settlement price the central financial institution a complete commerce lack of greater than GH¢20 billion in a single 12 months, a query value asking is what number of months, even perhaps days, it’ll take for GOLDBOD to burn by way of its working capital of GH¢4.5 billion simply by sustaining the identical export tempo.
The entire story being advised now
GOLDBOD might have executed nicely by itself books, however the Financial institution of Ghana paid the value.
Whereas the argument that Ghana wanted reserves isn’t unsure, a program structured in order that one firm earns earnings and one other absorbs losses wants modification.
The prices of the BoG will finally be borne by Ghanaians by way of taxes. That is not proven in GOLDBOD’s “stunning” monetary report.
