The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, Esq., has delivered a forceful rebuttal to what he described as a “persistent campaign of lies” waged by Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin, insisting that the state-owned gold trading entity recorded an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall profit of over GH¢5.4 billion in 2025.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Gyamfi took direct aim at Afenyo-Markin’s recent allegations that GoldBod incurred losses and was responsible for the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) US$1.7 billion loss under its Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP). The CEO labelled the claims “baseless,” “fallacious,” and “bereft of logic,” while challenging the MP to substantiate his accusations before a parliamentary committee.
The Allegations and the Audit Verdict
Afenyo-Markin, who is also the NPP parliamentary leader, had repeatedly asserted on the floor of Parliament and in media engagements that GoldBod’s 2025 gold-trading operations resulted in losses. He later pivoted to arguing that the IMF’s sixth review of Ghana’s Extended Credit Facility—which reported a US$1.7 billion loss for the BoG under the DGPP—implicated GoldBod as the cause.
But Gyamfi produced the Auditor-General’s audited financial statements for 2025 as incontrovertible proof. “The Audited Annual Report and Financial Statements of the GoldBod for the year ended December 31, 2025, prepared by the Auditor-General, completely belies that claim. It discloses an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall surplus of over GH¢5.4 billion. This is an incontrovertible fact,” he stated.
He also dismissed suggestions that the Auditor-General lacked access to full information, noting that all requested documents were supplied and all queries were answered, resulting in no adverse audit findings.
Dissecting the IMF Report: What the GoldBod’s Role Actually Was
The crux of the dispute lies in the DGPP, a programme initiated by the erstwhile NPP government in 2021 to purchase artisanal gold to boost foreign reserves. Gyamfi clarified that GoldBod’s participation in 2025 was merely a continuation of the role previously played by the defunct Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), under a September 2023 Gold Purchase Agreement with the BoG.
Under that agreement, the PMMC—and later GoldBod—acted solely as a buying agent, responsible for purchasing gold on the BoG’s behalf based on agreed terms. The buying agent had no role in the sale of gold, in determining off-take prices, or in signing any sales contracts. “The PMMC/GoldBod fulfilled its obligation in strict accordance with the contract and fully accounted for all advances—about GH¢133 billion—given to it in 2025,” Gyamfi said.
He stressed that the IMF reported losses stemmed from the BoG’s sale of gold, not from the purchase side. “If the PMMC/GoldBod had no role in the sale, it cannot be said to be responsible for losses incurred through the sale,” he argued.
The Fees Question: Less Than 1% of Losses
Afenyo-Markin had singled out fees paid to GoldBod—a 0.258% assay fee and a 0.5% service fee—as contributing to the BoG’s losses. Gyamfi countered that these fees amount to just 0.758% of the gold value, a fraction of the IMF-reported 17% loss.
He explained that the assay fee is a standard charge approved by Parliament under the Fees and Charges Act, paid by all gold exporters—including private firms and state entities like the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF)—for national assaying services. The service fee, meanwhile, covers transportation, logistics, security, insurance, and smelting losses, and was the same fee paid to the PMMC and other private aggregators like Redsapphire in 2023 and 2024.
“If the GoldBod is to blame because it was paid a legitimate fee, who then caused the BoG’s losses in 2022, 2023, and 2024, when the same fees were paid to PMMC and Redsapphire?” Gyamfi asked. He also drew a parallel to COCOBOD, asking if the board blames its Licensed Buying Companies for its own losses simply because they receive a 12.75% margin.
The Exchange Rate Conundrum
A key component of the BoG’s loss, according to the IMF, is the spread between the foreign exchange bureau rate used to purchase gold and the BoG’s own reference rate used for accounting. Gyamfi noted that this spread was a policy design feature, not mismanagement. He revealed that in 2024, PMMC bought gold at rates around GHS16–GHS17 per dollar, as prescribed by the BoG’s contract.
“The buying agent cannot vary agreed terms. The IMF itself attributes these losses to ‘valuation effects’ on the BoG’s books. Where then lies the claim of incompetence?” he asked.
He further pointed out that the BoG had actually improved its offtake discounts, reducing them from about 2.2% in 2023/2024 to about 1.2% in 2025—a fact he says can be verified with the central bank.
Shifting Goalposts and Political Context
Gyamfi accused Afenyo-Markin of shifting his narrative. When the Auditor-General debunked the claim of GoldBod losses, the MP quickly pivoted to blaming GoldBod for BoG’s DGPP losses—despite the IMF never explicitly naming GoldBod as the cause. “I challenge Afenyo-Markin to point to any page or sentence in the IMF report where GoldBod is accused,” Gyamfi said.
He also highlighted a logical inconsistency: the BoG recorded a US$400 million loss in 2024, before GoldBod existed. “Who caused that loss? Was it PMMC or Redsapphire? And in 2025, from January to May, Redsapphire acted as aggregator—is Afenyo saying that private company is responsible for the losses?” he queried.
Funding Arrangements and the GoldBod Trade Model
Addressing claims that the BoG has “pulled out” of financing GoldBod, Gyamfi clarified that there was never any financing of GoldBod itself. Funds advanced by the BoG were solely for its own gold purchases. Since March 2026, when GoldBod began implementing its own trade model under Act 1140, a new partnership framework has been established. The BoG covered baseline GANRAP implementation costs until June 2026, after which the responsibility shifted to the Ministry of Finance—a transfer of responsibility, not evidence of wrongdoing.
He also noted that GoldBod is now piloting its own capital raising for ASM purchases, independent of BoG intermediation, in line with Section 18 of Act 1140, which empowers the board to raise its own funds.
A Broader Economic Justification
Gyamfi framed the DGPP losses not as failures but as deliberate policy choices aimed at stabilising the economy. He argued that the programme’s “scaling up” increased foreign reserves from US13 billion in 2025, contributed to a 41% appreciation of the cedi, drove inflation down from 23.8% to below 5%, and delivered the macroeconomic stability the country currently enjoys.
“No one buys gold at spot prices and seeks profit. The focus was always the economic benefit,” he said, pointing out that the IMF itself attributed the losses to scaling up and valuation effects, not mismanagement.
Challenge and Warning
In a direct challenge to Afenyo-Markin, Gyamfi declared, “I am ready any day and time to appear before any committee of Parliament to discuss the operational and financial health of the GoldBod. Let no one seek to obfuscate by roping in the Bank of Ghana.”
He also took a swipe at the Minority Leader’s track record, noting that under Afenyo-Markin’s chairmanship of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the company posted a GH¢8.2 billion loss in 2024. “We will not take gold trading lessons from a brothel,” he said, adding that the attacks were part of a “calculated smear campaign” to undermine President Mahama’s economic transformation agenda.
Conclusion
As the press conference concluded, Gyamfi reiterated GoldBod’s commitment to transparency and urged the media to hold accusers to the strictest standard of proof. “The Ghanaian people deserve serious public discourse founded on facts, evidence, and truth, not an endless recycling of falsehoods,” he said.
The GoldBod, he emphasised, remains focused on its mandate—creating value for Ghanaians from the nation’s gold resources—and will not be distracted by what he termed “political blackmail” and “devious extortionists.”
For now, the ball is in Afenyo-Markin’s court. The MP has yet to respond to Gyamfi’s challenge, but the political and financial stakes could not be higher as Ghana’s gold trade and its economic recovery hang in the balance.
