The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has raised more than US$450 million from commercial banks and gold offtakers since March 2026 to finance its gold purchases without relying on funding from the Bank of Ghana, according to GoldBod's Chief Executive Officer, Sammy Gyamfi.
He said the funding formed part of measures adopted by GoldBod to sustain its operations after the Bank of Ghana ended its financing, and that the board had diversified its funding sources since it began fully implementing its statutory gold trading mandate in March 2026.
Gyamfi made the comments at a press briefing dubbed the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, in response to allegations levelled against GoldBod by the Minority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin.
He said GoldBod had raised close to US$839 million from gold offtakers between March and May 2026 under an advance funding arrangement, an amount subsequently sold to the Bank of Ghana at the prevailing reference rate under a foreign exchange sale agreement between the two institutions.
Another funding channel, a funded FX forward sales arrangement with commercial banks, was piloted on August 3, 2026, raising US$75 million, which was converted into gold and dollars and settled within 48 hours. Gyamfi said the pilot recorded no losses.
He said GoldBod subsequently generated US$164 million and US$270 million through the use of its own seed capital and the working capital of aggregators to purchase gold, bring in dollars and sell directly to commercial banks. Combined with the US$75 million pilot, the three amounts totalled about US$509 million, which he said represented the more than US$450 million raised through the various funding arrangements.
He said the funded FX forward sales arrangement is currently on hold pending wider consultations being led by the Ministry of Finance, following concerns raised by the Bank of Ghana. Despite the suspension, Gyamfi said 15 commercial banks had submitted letters of interest to join the scheme.
Gyamfi said GoldBod's funding model does not depend on capital from the Bank of Ghana, explaining that the Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140) empowers the institution to raise funds directly from financial markets, gold offtakers and commercial banks under Section 18 of the Act.
He said GoldBod's current trading model, which took full effect in March 2026, differs from the arrangement previously used by the Bank of Ghana under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme. Under the new model, he said, GoldBod buys, owns and sells gold under its own offtake agreements rather than acting solely as a buying agent, giving it greater responsibility for its own financing and trading operations.
The comments come amid an ongoing disagreement between GoldBod and the Minority in Parliament over the board's financial performance and funding arrangements, which followed an International Monetary Fund report stating that the Bank of Ghana recorded losses of more than US$1.7 billion under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme in 2025.
