Sammy Gyamfi Has Not Disputed $1.7bn Loss –Minority

A fresh political storm has erupted over the financial legacy of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), with the Minority in Parliament insisting that the state must account for a reported GH¢22 billion loss, while Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) Chief Executive Officer Sammy Gyamfi maintains that the figure cannot be attributed to the institution.

The latest salvo came from Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, on Wednesday, August 19, 2026 in response to Mr Gyamfi’s earlier rebuttal of the Minority’s original concerns raised on Tuesday.

The Minority’s original claim was based on the International Monetary Fund’s assessment of the DGPP, which put the programme’s 2025 loss at US$1.7 billion, equivalent to about GH¢22 billion and approximately 1.5 per cent of Ghana’s GDP.

In his counter-statement, Mr Afenyo-Markin accused the GoldBod CEO of using “crude insults, selective quotations and an accounting diversion”, arguing that Mr Gyamfi had not disputed the reported loss but was challenging responsibility for it.

“The loss is admitted. Public accountability must follow,” the Minority Leader declared.

Gyamfi – GoldBod made GH¢5.4bn surplus

Mr Gyamfi had mounted a vigorous defence of GoldBod at the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday, describing claims that the institution recorded losses in 2025 as a “barefaced lie.”

He challenged Mr Afenyo-Markin to identify where the IMF had directly accused GoldBod of causing the US$1.7 billion loss recorded by the Bank of Ghana.

According to Mr Gyamfi, GoldBod’s audited 2025 financial statements showed an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall surplus exceeding GH¢5.4 billion.

He, therefore, insisted that the Minority was wrongly presenting a loss incurred by the Bank of Ghana under the DGPP as a loss suffered by GoldBod.

Mr Gyamfi also argued that the DGPP was a policy programme that began in 2021 and that the losses associated with it predated the current GoldBod administration.

He said the programme had nevertheless delivered significant economic benefits, including foreign-exchange generation, reserve accumulation and support for the cedi.

Minority attacks the surplus

Mr Afenyo-Markin, however, has shifted the argument from whether GoldBod itself recorded a corporate loss to whether its activities and charges contributed to the loss borne by the Bank of Ghana.

He challenged Mr Gyamfi’s reliance on the GH¢5.4 billion overall surplus, arguing that about 84 per cent of that amount came from government grants rather than GoldBod’s operations.

The Minority cited GoldBod’s accounts as showing GH¢4.5477 billion in grants, GH¢970.77 million in non-tax revenue and GH¢35.34 million in finance income, against expenditure of GH¢109.59 million.

Mr Afenyo-Markin consequently questioned Mr Gyamfi’s description of the government funding as “revolving seed capital” or “equity”, pointing out that GoldBod’s accounts classified the money as grant revenue.

“Equity is capital; grant revenue is a transfer. It cannot be both,” he said.

Fees become key battleground

The Minority has also placed GoldBod’s fee income at the heart of the controversy.

According to Mr Afenyo-Markin, GoldBod received GH¢337.43 million in assay fees and GH¢558.14 million in Bank of Ghana service charges, amounting to GH¢895.57 million.

He argues that these fees were costs to the programme even though they were revenues to GoldBod.

The Minority says MrGyamfi’s own figures show GoldBod handled about GH¢133 billion in advances in 2025 and received an assay fee of 0.258 per cent and a service fee of 0.5 per cent, potentially generating close to GH¢1 billion in fees.

“Income to the agent is cost to the principal,” the Minority stated.

IMF report fuels dispute

The IMF’s assessment presents a more nuanced picture. It says the DGPP facilitated about US$10.9 billion in artisanal gold exports in 2025, equivalent to 9.5 per cent of GDP, helping to rebuild reserves and ease foreign-exchange pressures.

However, it also found that the rapid expansion of the programme coincided with losses of US$1.7 billion.

The IMF identified several cost components, including service and assay fees, discounts on gold sold to off-takers and exchange-rate losses.

The Minority argues that this establishes GoldBod’s financial connection to the loss, although it stops short of saying the IMF assigned sole liability to GoldBod.

Parliament urged to investigate

Mr Afenyo-Markin is now demanding a comprehensive examination of the programme, including the Gold Purchase Agreement and amendments, transaction records, assay invoices, exchange rates, off-taker contracts, discounts, settlement dates and fees.

He also wants the Auditor-General’s management letter, the cost-sharing agreement and the terms and findings of the special audit of the DGPP made public.

The Minority argues that GoldBod’s clean audit opinion cannot settle questions about the programme because an entity-level audit is different from a transaction-level examination of the entire DGPP.

Accountability battle widens

The dispute has also turned personal, with the Minority criticizing MrGyamfi’s references to a “brothel” and descriptions of some opposition figures as “extortionists” and “mercenaries”.

“Ghanaians asked for figures and records; abuse is not an answer,” the Minority leader said.

At the centre of the political battle is, therefore, a crucial distinction: GoldBod says it did not make a GH¢22 billion loss while the Minority argues that the absence of the loss from GoldBod’s own books does not absolve it from responsibility for costs incurred by the Bank of Ghana.

 

 

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