Ghana’s Gold Board has stopped relying on the Bank of Ghana to finance its gold purchases, but the central bank and GoldBod’s own chief executive have given conflicting timelines for when the shift actually took effect.
Bank of Ghana Governor Johnson Pandit Asiama told the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee in July that the central bank ceased pre-financing GoldBod’s gold purchases effective July 1. GoldBod CEO Sammy Gyamfi has since offered different dates in separate public remarks, telling one interviewer the arrangement ended in February and another that it wound down in July. GoldBod said the change was formalised through a shift to commercial financing that began in earnest this year.
Under the previous Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, the central bank funded GoldBod and its predecessor, the Precious Minerals Marketing Company, to buy gold on its behalf before taking possession of it. “That is Bank of Ghana giving money to an agent to buy gold,” Gyamfi said, describing the old model as a principal-agent relationship rather than financing for GoldBod itself.
GoldBod now raises money from commercial banks and gold offtakers instead, including through forward foreign-exchange deals in which it sells expected future dollar earnings from gold exports in advance. Gyamfi said GoldBod tested the model on August 3, raising US$75 million and converting it into dollars within 48 hours without involving the central bank.
The shift comes as the Bank of Ghana’s own domestic gold programme faces scrutiny over its finances. The central bank’s 2025 annual report showed the programme lost more than GH¢9 billion that year, up from a loss of roughly GH¢5.7 billion in 2024. Opposition MP Abena Osei-Asare has pointed to those losses in questioning GoldBod’s finances, a claim Gyamfi has rejected, arguing the losses sit with the central bank’s programme and not with GoldBod’s own accounts.
GoldBod said the new financing model marks a step toward its operational and financial independence, as Ghana, Africa’s largest gold producer, looks to domestic bullion purchases to support its foreign-exchange reserves.
