Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has aggressively questioned the legitimacy of the recent GoldBod surplus, accusing state officials of shielding the actual financial damage caused by the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme.
Addressing the press in Accra on Tuesday, the Effutu lawmaker argued that the Auditor-General received a heavily sanitized version of the Ghana Gold Board books, keeping massive operational costs out of the final public accounting.
The official audit painted a remarkably healthy picture for the 2025 financial year, declaring an operational profit of GH₵909.7 million and an overall surplus sitting at GH₵5.44 billion. Afenyo-Markin dismissed these figures as a partial truth designed to deflect from catastrophic central bank losses.
Hidden Costs at the Central Bank
The opposition leader broke down the mechanics of the alleged accounting smokescreen, insisting that the Bank of Ghana quietly absorbed the heaviest financial burdens of the gold trading scheme to artificially prop up GoldBod’s balance sheet.
"Yes, we concede that it is the Auditor-General that has conducted an audit, but the Auditor-General was not given access to the full picture," Afenyo-Markin told reporters.
"If the Auditor-General knows that indeed the costs of GoldBod’s transaction were borne by Bank of Ghana, Auditor-General would not declare surplus in its accounting reporting." - Afenyo-Markin
He maintained that using these isolated surplus figures to wave away public anxiety surrounding the Ghana Audit Service review is a deliberate misdirection that fails the basic transparency test.
IMF Flags Massive GDP Hit
The Minority Leader’s fiery pushback follows a damning August disclosure from the International Monetary Fund.
The Bretton Woods institution recently reported that the domestic gold acquisition initiative hemorrhaged more than $1.7 billion in 2025 alone. That staggering deficit wiped out the equivalent of 1.5% of the national Gross Domestic Product.
Those grim macroeconomic realities present a stark contrast to the rosy financial health published by GoldBod, prompting demands for immediate structural scrutiny.
Call for an Immediate Pricing Review
Afenyo-Markin warned that the sheer scale of the deficit requires a forensic dissection of how the state executes its bullion trades. He argued that lawmakers need to know exactly how pricing limits, bulk trading volumes, and hidden transaction overheads were allowed to bleed the central bank dry under the guise of strengthening national reserves.
"Any responsible government confronted with this GH¢22 billion loss should immediately investigate whether the incentive structure encouraged excessive volumes, inadequate pricing discipline, or insufficient attention to trading costs." - Afenyo-Markin
The Minority Leader declared that pointing to an isolated agency profit while ignoring the broader financial devastation at the central bank will not silence the ongoing parliamentary probe into the scheme.
READ ALSO: Fair Credit Must Define Measuring Financial Inclusion in Ghana - BoG Deputy Governor
