BY Daniel Bampoe
The controversy surrounding the financial performance of Ghana’s gold-for-reserves programme has intensified, with former Finance Minister and Member of Parliament for Atiwa East, Abena Osei-Asare, demanding a full investigation into reported losses running into billions of cedis.
Osei-Asare, who chairs Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, says the debate should not be reduced to a disagreement over the source of one financial figure, arguing that the more important question confronting the government is how losses reportedly associated with the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme accumulated to approximately GH¢21.89 billion.
Her intervention follows a fact-check by JoyNews concerning an earlier claim she made about a US$214 million loss attributed to the Bank of Ghana in connection with the gold programme.
According to Osei-Asare, the fact-check was correct in pointing out that she had attributed the US$214 million figure to the Bank of Ghana’s 2025 audited financial statements when the figure was, in fact, an International Monetary Fund confirmation relating to the artisanal and small-scale mining doré component of the Gold for Reserves programme through the third quarter of 2025.
But she insists that the correction does not eliminate the wider financial concerns surrounding the programme.
“The fact still remains that at the end of the third quarter, BoG had incurred a loss of $214 Million on behalf of Goldbod,” she argued.
The former minister says the focus should instead turn to the broader figures contained in recent assessments of the programme, particularly the reported gross and net losses associated with gold transactions.
She points to what she describes as the IMF’s latest assessment, which she says found that the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme generated substantial losses and exposed the Bank of Ghana to significant quasi-fiscal risks.
According to the figures cited by Osei-Asare, a GH¢21.89 billion gross loss was recorded on doré gold, while the Bank of Ghana’s audited accounts showed approximately GH¢9.1 billion in net losses on gold transactions.
The difference between the gross and net figures has now become one of the central issues in her demand for greater transparency.
Abena Osei-Asare argues that the government must explain how the two figures were arrived at, what costs were deducted in arriving at the net position and whether Ghana ultimately obtained value for the funds deployed in the programme.
She has therefore raised questions over the role of transaction fees, discounts, premiums and other associated costs in determining the final financial outcome.
For her, the magnitude of the figures makes the matter too significant to be dismissed as a technical accounting dispute.
She draws a comparison between the reported losses and Ghana’s IMF-supported economic adjustment programme, which was backed by a facility of approximately US$3 billion.
Osei-Asare argues that reported gross losses equivalent to about US$1.7 billion would represent more than half of the value of the entire IMF facility.
That comparison, she says, demonstrates why the financial performance of the gold programme deserves serious public scrutiny.
“No serious government can treat a loss of that magnitude as an accounting footnote,” she argued.
The Domestic Gold Purchase Programme was introduced as part of Ghana’s broader strategy to use domestically produced gold to strengthen the country’s foreign-exchange reserves and reduce reliance on traditional foreign-exchange sources.
The programme has subsequently become a major component of Ghana’s gold and reserves strategy, with the government seeking to increase the role of locally produced gold in strengthening the country’s external position.
However, the scale of the reported financial losses has now raised questions about whether the programme’s implementation delivered the intended benefits at an acceptable cost.
Abena Osei-Asare says the government must explain precisely how the losses arose.
Among the questions she wants answered to are how the GH¢21.89 billion gross loss relates to the approximately GH¢9.1 billion net loss, what amounts were absorbed through transaction-related charges and whether the taxpayer received value commensurate with the resources committed.
She argues that correcting the attribution of the US$214 million figure should not divert public attention from those larger questions.
“A fact-check of one attribution cannot become a distraction from these far more serious questions,” she said.
The Atiwa East MP has consequently renewed her call for President John Dramani Mahama to order a comprehensive investigation into the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme.
She wants such an investigation to establish where the money went, why the losses were incurred, how the losses arose and what safeguards can be introduced to prevent similar financial exposure in future.
The controversy comes at a time when Ghana continues to rely heavily on gold as one of its most important sources of foreign exchange and as the government seeks to expand the country’s control over the gold value chain.
The debate therefore extends beyond the immediate financial statements to questions about the management of one of the most valuable natural resources.
For Osei-Asare, the central issue is accountability rather than political argument over who cited which document.
She maintains that the figures must be properly explained to Ghanaians, particularly because the programme involves public institutions and resources.
Her position is that a correction concerning the source of one figure should not be allowed to obscure the broader financial picture.
“The public interest lies not in debating who cited which document, but in establishing where the money went, why these losses were incurred, how they occurred and what stringent safeguards must be put in place to prevent a recurrence,” she said.
The former Finance Minister has therefore placed the issue squarely before the Mahama administration, insisting that the reported figures warrant an independent examination.
