GoldBod Should Borrow Commercially to Finance Gold Purchases

A former Dean of the School of Economics at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Professor James Atta Peprah, has called for the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) to stop relying on Bank of Ghana (BoG) financing for its gold-purchasing activities. He argues that GoldBod should instead raise funds from the open money market at commercial rates to finance its gold purchases and trading operations.

This approach, according to Prof. Peprah, would ensure that GoldBod operates more like a commercial gold-trading institution while reducing the exposure of the central bank to losses arising from its activities. He believes that GoldBod should be able to borrow commercially, use the funds to purchase and aggregate gold, and subsequently sell the gold as part of its normal trading operations.

Prof. Peprah's comments come amid a dispute over a reported $1.7 billion loss associated with Ghana's Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) in 2025. The Chief Executive Officer of GoldBod, Sammy Gyamfi, has rejected claims that GoldBod incurred $1.7 billion in losses in 2025, describing the allegation as a 'barefaced lie'. However, Prof. Peprah argues that the financial relationship between GoldBod and the Bank of Ghana makes it difficult to treat the two institutions as completely independent.

He believes that where the central bank provides financing for GoldBod's activities, any losses arising from those activities could ultimately have implications for BoG's accounts. 'Why should we blame a BoG loss on Gold Board? They financed it. BoG financed it. They cannot be treated as separate entities,' Prof. Peprah said.