BY Daniel Bampoe
Former Deputy Minister for Finance and New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Atiwa East, Abena Osei-Asare, has raised fresh questions over the 2025 audited financial statements of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), focusing attention on how a GH¢4.5477 billion government transfer was classified and subsequently reflected in the institution’s reported financial performance.
Her intervention introduces another layer to the increasingly contentious debate over GoldBod’s finances, which has already generated sharp exchanges between the government and the parliamentary Minority.
While the political controversy has largely centred on claims of substantial losses associated with the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), Osei-Asare’s argument focuses on the accounting treatment of government funds and whether the reported surplus gives an accurate picture of GoldBod’s underlying financial performance.
According to Osei-Asare, GoldBod’s own Business Review describes the GH¢4.5477 billion received from government as “revolving trade capital” intended to support the institution’s gold purchasing, trading and export activities.
She argues, however, that the same amount was recognised in GoldBod’s accounts as grant revenue, thereby contributing to the institution’s reported surplus.
She says this classification requires a detailed explanation because the money was described elsewhere in the same report as “unutilised government subvention”, while the financial statements reportedly indicate that the entire amount remained at the Bank of Ghana at the end of 2025.
The former Minister of State at the Finance Ministry therefore poses what she considers a fundamental accounting question: How could GH¢4.5477 billion provided as revolving trade capital, and reportedly still unutilised at the end of the financial year, be recognised as revenue and contribute to a reported surplus of approximately GH¢5.44 billion?
Her concerns come against the background of growing scrutiny of GoldBod since its establishment as the state’s central institution for the formalisation and management of the gold trading sector.
GoldBod was created under legislation that sought to reorganise the country’s gold purchasing and export system, including bringing artisanal and small-scale gold production more firmly into the formal economy.
The policy has subsequently become an important component of government’s broader strategy for increasing foreign-exchange inflows, supporting the cedi and building the reserves.
The financial controversy, however, intensified after reports concerning losses associated with the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported significant losses of $1.7billion arising from the programme, with the figures for 2025 becoming a major political point of contention.
Government officials, including outgoing Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga, have argued that what critics describe as losses should instead be understood partly as costs associated with policies intended to stabilise the cedi and strengthen the economy. GoldBod Chief Executive Officer Sammy Gyamfi has similarly insisted that GoldBod’s operations should be assessed on their overall performance rather than isolated trading losses.
The Minority, led by Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has rejected that explanation and has demanded a comprehensive parliamentary inquiry into the transactions.
The Minority maintains that regardless of which government institution ultimately carries the accounting burden, losses involving public resources must be fully explained. Osei-Asare’s intervention now shifts part of the debate from the question of trading losses to the composition of GoldBod’s reported income and surplus.
Her argument is that before the public accepts claims about GoldBod making billions of cedis in surplus, there must be clarity about how much of that figure actually came from commercial operations and how much resulted from money transferred by the government itself.
She has consequently invoked the importance of accounting standards governing public-sector financial reporting.
Abena Osei-Asare argues that the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), particularly IPSAS 1 and IPSAS 23, require transactions to be presented according to their substance and applicable conditions.
She also points to provisions of Ghana’s Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921), particularly Sections 79, 82 and 93, which deal with aspects of public financial management and financial reporting. Her position is that where government funds are described by the recipient institution as revolving capital, there must be a transparent explanation of why they were subsequently treated as grant revenue.
The former Minister has also raised concerns about what she describes as inconsistencies within different sections of GoldBod’s 2025 annual report.
According to her, different portions of the document contain differing figures relating to expenditure, surplus, total assets, net assets and GoldBod’s share of profits from GoldBod Jewellery Limited. She argues that an audited financial statement involving billions of cedis in public resources should present a consistent set of figures that allows Parliament, auditors, investors and ordinary citizens to understand precisely how the institution arrived at its reported financial position.
Osei-Asare is therefore calling on the directors of GoldBod to provide a detailed reconciliation of the GH¢4.5477 billion and explain the precise accounting basis on which the amount was treated as grant revenue.
She has also called on the Auditor-General to make available the Management Letter arising from the audit, arguing that the document could help establish whether the accounting concerns were identified during the audit process and, if so, what explanations GoldBod provided.
