The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has breached a statutory deadline for publishing its 2025 audited financial statements, with the legal window now closed and no accounts in sight, raising fresh questions about transparency at the country’s central bank.
Under the Bank of Ghana Act 2002 (Act 612), Section 58(1)(a), the central bank is required to submit its audited annual accounts to the Minister of Finance within three months after the end of the financial year. The Minister must then ensure those accounts are published in the Gazette within one month of receipt. With the 2025 financial year closing on December 31, the three-month submission window expired at the end of March. A further provision, Section 58(1)(b), mandates the central bank to publish an annual report including financial statements within six months after the end of the financial year.
The central bank has offered no public explanation for the delay. A source familiar with the situation expressed the belief that the central bank is trying to conceal losses, though this claim remains unverified.
The delay arrives against a backdrop of documented financial strain. In 2024, the BoG recorded total losses of GH¢5.66 billion on domestic gold purchase programmes, comprising GH¢1.82 billion under the Gold for Oil initiative and GH¢3.84 billion under the Gold for Reserves programme. The loss figures for 2025 are still being assessed by an external audit.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its fifth review of Ghana’s Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme, disclosed that losses from artisanal and small-scale gold transactions under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) had reached $214 million by the end of September 2025. The Fund cautioned that losses of this nature should not be borne by the central bank. The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has contested the IMF’s characterisation, insisting it had not recorded losses and was set to post a surplus.
In a statement issued in December 2025, the Bank of Ghana described any figures reported in relation to losses from gold operations as speculative, noting that its audited financial statements would be published in 2026 in accordance with statutory requirements. That commitment now sits in tension with the missed March deadline.
The pattern of late reporting is not new. The central bank’s 2024 annual report and financial statements, covering the year ended December 31, 2024, were published in June 2025, also beyond the legally stipulated three-month window.
For analysts and investors, the absence of independently audited accounts at a moment when questions persist about the central bank’s exposure to commodity-backed programmes is a significant transparency concern. The Finance Ministry faces its own compliance risk if the accounts are not gazetted within one month of receiving them from the central bank.
The Bank of Ghana had not responded to questions about the delay as of the time of publication.
