Dr Adu Owusu Sarkodie, a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Ghana, says the reported US$1.7bn loss linked to the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) should be recorded in the books of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), rather than treated as a GoldBod loss.
Dr Sarkodie said the issue could not be attributed solely to GoldBod. However, he added that the institution should accept responsibility for the loss if it also claimed credit for the accumulation of the country’s gold reserves.
“The 1.7billion loss sits in the books of the BoG. But if Goldbod is claiming credit for the reserve accumulation, then it should accept blame,” he said on TV3’s Key Points programme on Saturday, August 22.
He also criticised what he described as the excessive politicisation of the dispute, arguing that attention should instead focus on reducing the financial losses and addressing foreign exchange differences.
“We have over-politicised this Goldbod loss. Let’s rather focus on optimisation of the cost and fixing the forex differentials,” he said.
Dr Sarkodie further said the Bank of Ghana and GoldBod should have explained the losses publicly before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published its findings.
In his view, earlier communication from the two institutions would have reduced the uncertainty and public debate surrounding the figures.
“We expect BoG to call some of the experts to explain the cause of the loss.
“We should have heard from BoG or Goldbod before the IMF. That would have cured the noise. We have overpoliticized the loss,” he said.
The comments come amid a dispute over whether GoldBod suffered losses of more than US$1.7bn, equivalent to about GH¢22bn, during the 2025 financial year.
GoldBod chief executive Sammy Gyamfi has rejected suggestions that the institution withheld financial information from the Auditor-General. He said the audit team had unrestricted access to all relevant documents while examining GoldBod’s 2025 accounts.
Speaking to journalists at the government’s Accountability Series on Wednesday, 19 August 2026, Mr Gyamfi said every document requested by the auditors had been supplied and that the issues raised in the management letter had been satisfactorily addressed.
He said the resulting audit report contained no adverse findings against GoldBod, including in relation to alleged losses, procurement breaches or breaches of the Public Financial Management Act.
“They now claim that the Auditor-General did not have access to the full picture concerning the operations of GoldBod. This position betrays either a lack of understanding of how an external audit is conducted, or a deliberate determination to undermine yet another independent state institution when its findings do not suit their narratives,” he said.
According to the Auditor-General’s report, GoldBod recorded an operational surplus of GH¢909.7m and an overall surplus of GH¢5.44bn in 2025.
“We have not made any losses as claimed by the Minority Leader,” Mr Gyamfi said, describing the allegation as “a bare-faced lie”.
He challenged Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin to identify any part of the report supporting his claim.
Mr Gyamfi was responding to a press conference held by Mr Afenyo-Markin in Parliament on Tuesday, August 18. The Minority Leader said the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, operated through GoldBod, had recorded losses exceeding US$1.7bn in 2025.
Mr Afenyo-Markin cited IMF Country Report No. 26/213 and argued that GoldBod’s reported surplus did not present the full financial picture. He suggested the Auditor-General had not received complete information because transaction costs were allegedly recorded by the Bank of Ghana rather than in GoldBod’s own accounts.
Mr Gyamfi rejected that interpretation, saying it was not supported by the IMF report.
“It is important for us not to attribute the IMF to what they have not said. They have not said that the GoldBod is the one that caused the Bank of Ghana to lose 1.7 billion dollars,” he said.
He noted that the Bank of Ghana had recorded losses under the same programme before GoldBod was established.
“There was no GoldBod in 2024,” he said, referring to a separate US$400m loss attributed to 2024 in the IMF report.
“Where in the world is one body corporate blamed for accounting losses incurred by another independent, separate and distinct body corporate without any evidentiary basis?” he asked.
