Associate Professor of Development Economics at the University of Ghana, Prof. Ebo Turkson, has firmly dismissed recent media reports suggesting that the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) recorded a staggering US$1.7 billion loss. Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, Prof. Turkson clarified that the figure, cited by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its 2026 Article IV Consultation report, actually pertains to the financial burden borne by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) under its Domestic Gold Purchase Programme — not a loss incurred by GoldBod as an operating entity.
The IMF’s Finding and the Confusion
The IMF’s report, released earlier this week, noted that the “significant scaling-up” of the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme in 2025 resulted in losses exceeding US214 million loss, sparking widespread public debate and concern over the fiscal prudence of the gold-buying scheme.
However, Prof. Turkson stressed that the IMF’s language must be read carefully: “No, GoldBod has not made 1.7 billion losses. It is a cost that has come to the central bank through the gold purchase programme.” He emphasised that GoldBod itself, as a corporate entity, is not operating at a deficit. “In terms of GoldBod appreciation itself, if I read from what their financial statements and others are showing clearly, GoldBod as an entity itself is not running a loss,” he stated.
The Mechanics Behind the ‘Loss’
To unpack the controversy, Prof. Turkson explained that the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme was conceived as a strategic economic intervention — not a commercial profit-making venture for GoldBod. The programme was designed to help Ghana accumulate physical gold reserves, bolster the central bank’s foreign exchange buffers, and reduce the incentive for smuggling artisanal and small-scale mined gold out of the country.
Under the scheme, GoldBod purchases gold from licensed miners at prices that closely track international market rates. The Bank of Ghana then records the value of that gold on its books using its own accounting exchange rate. Because GoldBod’s acquisition price and the BoG’s valuation rate differ, a “translation cost” arises — an accounting mismatch that is borne entirely by the central bank.
“So the way between the two rates, by design, will mean that it will come at a cost to the central bank,” Prof. Turkson said. “And so that is one of the translational costs that has been on the central bank’s book.” He therefore argued that the IMF’s US$1.7 billion figure should be understood as the cost of the gold purchase programme to the Bank of Ghana, not a loss suffered by GoldBod.
Beyond the Cost: Tangible Economic Gains
Prof. Turkson urged Ghanaians to look beyond the headline figure and assess the programme’s broader macroeconomic dividends. He noted that in its first year, GoldBod added nearly 40 tonnes of gold — valued at approximately US$4 billion — to the country’s reserves. This accumulation, he said, provided critical ammunition for the Bank of Ghana to intervene in the foreign exchange market, helping to stabilise and even appreciate the cedi throughout 2025.
The stronger cedi, in turn, had cascading benefits: it helped reduce Ghana’s debt-to-GDP ratio from about 68% to 45%, and generated estimated savings of nearly GH¢7 billion on external debt servicing, as the country paid back foreign-denominated loans with a more valuable local currency. Furthermore, the currency appreciation contributed to a decline in inflation, which ended 2025 at 9.5% — a level not seen in years.
“That came with a huge savings to Ghana, almost 7 billion cedis, huge savings from that,” Prof. Turkson said, adding that the inflation drop was directly linked to the exchange rate improvement.
A Call for Balanced Assessment
The professor argued that the debate should not be reduced to a single loss figure. “For me, as much as we talk about the losses from the gold purchase programme, I choose to call it that way and not GoldBod losses, because the gold purchase programme is what GoldBod is supporting the central bank,” he said.
He maintained that Ghana must evaluate the policy intervention holistically — weighing the accounting cost against the strategic gains in reserve strength, currency stability, debt reduction, and inflationary control. “I think that we need to look beyond this amount and look at the benefits of the gold purchase programme and also to look at the way forward in Ghana, trying to build reserves to sustain the stability that we need for the resilience that we need for this economy to transform quickly,” he concluded.
Background: The GoldBod and the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme
The Ghana Gold Board was established under the GoldBod Act, 2024 (Act 1108) to centralise and regulate the purchase and marketing of gold from artisanal and small-scale miners. Its mandate includes curbing illicit gold smuggling, ensuring fair pricing for miners, and partnering with the central bank to build national gold reserves.
The Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, launched in earnest in 2025, was a key pillar of the government’s economic recovery strategy following Ghana’s debt restructuring and IMF programme. While the programme has drawn criticism from some fiscal hawks over its upfront costs, proponents — including Prof. Turkson — argue that the long-term benefits of reserve accumulation and exchange-rate stability outweigh the transitional accounting losses.
As the public digests the IMF report, Prof. Turkson’s intervention serves as a timely reminder to distinguish between operational losses of a state-owned enterprise and policy-implementation costs borne by the central bank — a distinction that, he argues, is critical for informed economic discourse.
