BY Issah Olegor
The Chief Executive Officer of GoldBod, Sammy Gyamfi, has mounted a strong defence of the institution’s reported financial losses, insisting that the figures must be viewed within the broader historical and policy context of the gold management framework.
His comments come amid growing public scrutiny over claims that GoldBod recorded losses amounting to about $214 million, a development that has sparked sharp political debate.
Speaking ahead of a planned press briefing, Sammy Gyamfi argued that attempts to single out GoldBod for criticism deliberately ignore the substantial losses incurred under previous gold-related interventions introduced by the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.
According to him, those earlier programmes—specifically the Gold-for-Oil (G4O) and Gold-for-Reserves (G4R) initiatives—recorded even higher losses, yet were justified at the time as necessary policy tools to stabilise the economy.
Sammy Gyamfi pointed out that between 2023 and 2024, the Bank of Ghana recorded combined losses exceeding GHS7 billion under the G4O and G4R programmes.
He noted that in 2023 alone, losses from the Gold-for-Oil initiative stood at about GHS1.18 billion, while Gold-for-Reserves accounted for an additional GHS973 million.
In 2024, the situation worsened, with losses of over GHS4.8 billion recorded across both programmes.
Despite these figures, he noted, the policies were defended by the previous administration as necessary interventions to stabilise the cedi and manage fuel prices.
According to Sammy Gyamfi, it is therefore disingenuous for critics to now portray GoldBod’s reported 2025 losses—estimated at about GHS2.3 billion or roughly $214 million—as evidence of failure, while ignoring the broader historical context.
He argued that under the same NPP administration, far greater losses were incurred with little public outcry, even as inflation remained high and the cedi continued to depreciate sharply during that period.
He further contrasted the economic outcomes of the two periods, noting that during the years when G4O and G4R were implemented, the cedi lost nearly 28 percent of its value in 2023 and over 19 percent in 2022, while inflation hovered above 20 percent.
By contrast, he said, under the current framework involving GoldBod, inflation has declined steadily for eleven consecutive months, falling to about 6.3 percent, while the cedi has appreciated by more than 35 percent against the US dollar—marking its strongest performance in nearly two decades.
Sammy Gyamfi insisted that GoldBod’s operations must be assessed within this broader macroeconomic context rather than through isolated figures.
He maintained that the institution’s mandate goes beyond short-term profit and is closely tied to stabilising the national economy, strengthening reserves, and restoring confidence in the cedi.
