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Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has hit back at Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin over his claims regarding GoldBod’s operations, describing the arguments as “bereft of facts and common sense.”
The comments come after the Minority in Parliament accused GoldBod of failing to account for losses linked to gold trading operations while taking credit for foreign exchange gains generated from the same transactions.
The dispute follows an August report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which indicated that the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme recorded losses exceeding US$1.7 billion in 2025, equivalent to about 1.5% of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Speaking during the government’s Accountability Series on Wednesday, August 19, Mr Gyamfi rejected attempts to link the reported losses to GoldBod, insisting that the institution acted only as a buying agent for the Bank of Ghana and had no involvement in the subsequent sale of the gold.
“…The new false narrative of Afenyo-Markin and his followers that the Gold Board is to blame for losses incurred by the Bank of Ghana under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme is bereft of facts and common sense,” he said.
GoldBod’s role
Mr Gyamfi explained that GoldBod’s involvement in the programme in 2025 was inherited from the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), which had entered into a Gold Purchase Agreement with the Bank of Ghana in September 2023.
Under the agreement, he said, PMMC was engaged as a buying agent responsible for purchasing and aggregating gold for the central bank under agreed terms.
According to Mr Gyamfi, PMMC, which was subsequently transformed into GoldBod, fulfilled its obligations and accounted fully for the funds advanced to it for gold purchases.
He said approximately GH¢133 billion was advanced to PMMC and later GoldBod in 2025 for gold purchases, adding that the entire amount was accounted for.
Mr Gyamfi stressed that GoldBod had no role in the subsequent sale of the gold acquired on behalf of the Bank of Ghana.
“The PMMC and GoldBod had no role in the sale of gold by the Bank of Ghana under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme. It was not a signatory to any off-take agreements under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, nor was it involved in determining selling prices or sale terms,” he stated.
He argued that GoldBod could not be held responsible for losses arising from the sale of the gold because it had no control over the selling price or the terms under which the gold was sold.
“In commodity trading, profit is simply a function of selling price minus cost,” he said.
Mr Gyamfi further maintained that the IMF report attributed the reported losses to gold sales undertaken by the Bank of Ghana, rather than gold purchases made by PMMC or GoldBod.
2024 losses
The GoldBod CEO also challenged the Minority’s position by pointing to losses recorded under the programme in 2024, a year before GoldBod was established.
“The IMF report says that the Bank of Ghana incurred a loss of $400 million from gold sales under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme in the year 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, there was no GoldBod in the year 2024,” he said.
He explained that the Bank of Ghana used PMMC and a private company, Resafire, as buying and aggregation agents in 2024.
“If we are to accept this argument that losses under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme are attributable to buying agents, then, as Afenyo-Markin is saying, that buying agents in 2024 caused the loss of $400 million. And those buying agents were the PMMC and a private company called Resafire,” Mr Gyamfi stated.
He questioned why the Minority had not similarly attributed the 2024 losses to PMMC and Resafire if its argument was that buying agents were responsible for losses recorded under the programme.
Mr Gyamfi also disclosed that the Bank of Ghana engaged Resafire, a private aggregator, to purchase and aggregate gold under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme in 2025.