The Minority Caucus in Parliament if calling for a full scall bi-partisan investigation into the circumstances leading to the IMF’s report that the Bank of Ghana has US$214m loss in relation to the gold for reserve programme.
A a press conference, the Minority is demanding:
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(1) A Parliamentary Ad-hoc Investigative Committee with power to subpoena all contracts, licences, intermediaries, including the Bawa-Rock monopoly.
(2) Full National Disclosure: BoG and GoldBod must publish fee structures, pricing formulas, aggregator selection criteria, and all foreign-exchange arrangements tied to this scheme.
(3) Environmental Emergency Measures: Suspend permits in forest reserves; impose blockchain-based mine-level traceability for all purchases.
(4) Accountability — Without Fear or Favour: The Governor of the Bank of Ghana and the CEO of GoldBod must appear before the Committee and they must allow unhindered investigation.
Where negligence or corruption is proven, criminal prosecutions must follow and all recoverable funds clawed back.”
Read this full statement
AN URGENT NATIONAL ADDRESS BY THE MINORITY CAUCUS
“THE GOLDEN BETRAYAL (THE GOLDBOD SCANDAL)” — A NATIONAL DEMAND FOR ANSWERS, TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media, Fellow Ghanaians,
Thank you for joining us at short notice. At a time when most Ghanaian families are enjoying rest, fellowship, and the spirit of Christmas, we, Members of the Minority, have been compelled to suspend our holidays. We do so because our nation is in danger, and silence at such a time would itself be a betrayal.
Tonight, while some of our streets and homes glow with Christmas lights, a darkness spreads beneath the entire surface, a shadow of economic sabotage, environmental devastation, and institutional capture. A policy once designed to give Ghana sovereignty in foreign exchange, strengthen our reserves, and bring economic dignity has instead been twisted into a pipeline for draining national wealth, destroying rivers, and mortgaging the future of our children.
We come before you not to trade partisan rhetoric, but to sound an alarm. It is about the news that Ghana stands to lose some $300m in 2025 through the activities of GoldBod. Already, from the IMF Report, in the first nine months alone, $214 million was stated as lost. We believe to focus on the central bank alone may miss the plot.
I. The First Question Ghana Must Ask: Who Is Alhaji Bawa?
Before examining balance sheets, IMF tables, and public statements, let us start with the question the public has not been allowed to ask:
Who is Alhaji Bawa of Bawa-Rock Ltd? How did his company become the only aggregator licensed by GoldBod to purchase all artisanal gold directly for GodBod from suppliers across Ghana?
Why was a de-facto monopoly created in an industry where competition ensures fair pricing, transparency, and prevents rent-seeking? Who benefits from this deliberate and needless monopoly?
Who selected Bawa-Rock? What criteria were used? Who are its beneficial owners? And why must every miner, dealer, landowner, and small-scale producer pass through this private entity before gold reaches GoldBod and, for reserves, ultimately the Bank of Ghana?
Until these questions are answered publicly, no Ghanaian can trust the integrity of this scheme.
II. The IMF Losses Are Not the Whole Story
The IMF has published a damning number:
$214 million in losses under the so-called Gold-for-Reserves scheme in just nine months of 2025.
But fellow Ghanaians, the losses being reported are not even the full story.
Here is how the losses actually occur:
• Small-scale miners will not sell unless they are paid true global market prices (even if at a slight discount) and at an exchange rate which the forex bureaus use.
• GoldBod therefore has to pay miners at real market value.
• But GoldBod then sells the dollars it receives from offshore buyers back to the Bank of Ghana at the BoG or interbank rate, which is a weaker rate.
• GoldBod protects its books,by passing the exchange-rate loss directly onto the Bank of Ghana.
This is not a “market fluctuation problem.” It is a system design that forces the State to bleed so intermediaries remain secure.
III. The Original Programme Worked — Until It Was Broken
Let us remind the nation what Gold-for-Reserves was meant to be.
It was a sovereign reserve-building tool to help Ghana accumulate physical gold, strengthen our balance sheet, reduce reliance on foreign-currency borrowing, and gradually stabilise the cedi.
Under the original NPP design:
• Ghana’s reserves increased from 8.7 tonnes to 31 tonnes in under two years,
• And no losses accrued because BoG bought physical gold directly for reserves, not for speculative trade.
Under the current NDC administration:
• The Bank of Ghana has ceded its mandate to GoldBod, which now operates primarily as a trading company, not a reserves-builder.
• And the moment we shift from holding strategic gold to trading gold, pricing and FX risks appear and Ghana pays for them.
Despite unprecedented volumes of gold passing through GoldBod, our reserves have increased only from 31 tonnes to 38 tonnes. Just seven tonnes after all this theatre.
This is not prioritisation of reserves; it is prioritisation of rent-seeking.
This is where media attention should be focused. There is a serious case of state treasure capture going on and we need answers now.
IV. What $214 Million Really Means
Let us refuse the temptation to treat this matter as an abstract accounting issue. $214 million could have built 12 fully-equipped Agenda-111-scale district hospitals,
or 30 modest hospitals,
or 40,000–60,000 boreholes, providing clean, safe water to villages, schools, clinics, and farming communities.
When government shrugs at $214 million, understand:
these are hospitals that will never be built, taps that will never flow, children who will continue to walk miles for water.
V. Environmental Devastation — Laundered Through State Policy
While the financial tragedy unfolds, another crisis deepens. Illegal mining continues at unprecedented levels. Forests are burned. Rivers are poisoned with mercury and cyanide. Cocoa farms, a backbone of our economic heritage, are being erased.
GoldBod claims it buys only from licensed producers. Yet, it cannot meet OECD traceability standards and cannot prove its gold is not sourced from illegal, destructive operations.
The result? State-sanctioned gold-buying has become the unintended laundering system for galamsey and the proceeds are channeled through a a Bawa-Rock of state treasure capture.
We are financing our own ecological destruction.
VI. The Arrogance of Denial
In the face of this devastation, what do we see? A GoldBod CEO publicly celebrating export targets while the IMF labels his operations a “significant downside risk” to Ghana’s stabilisation programme.
A Bank of Ghana Christmas Day press release dismissing losses as “speculative,” even though IMF data was submitted by Ghana itself during programme review.
Ghanaians are not fools. We recognise incompetence and we know arrogance when we hear it.
VI-B. The Truth About This Government — No Ideas, Just Rebranding
Fellow Ghanaians, let us be brutally honest, this government has shown, in its very first full year, that it came with no ideas and has governed with no new ideas. Ghanaians have found out that the promise to reset Ghana was nothing more than rebranding projects and initiatives that were already in place by the NPP government. But rebranding without the requisite competence can be disastrous.
We now ask:
When the IMF is no longer here after mid-2026, and they have finished copying from the NPP, who will they copy from? Who will shepherd them then?
We handed over in January 2025 an economy far larger, far stronger and far less burdened by debt servicing than what they handed us in January 2017. Their singular instinct has been to capitalise on the architecture innovated by the NPP:
Gold-for-Reserves, Gold-for-Oil, and Gold-for-Forex, as typical examples.
And what have they contributed? Nothing but rebranding. They simply took the PMMC, and the work MIIF has also started to do regarding gold for forex, rebadged it as “GoldBod,” quickly pass a bill to grant it sweeping powers over all small-scale gold, plus 20% of all others produced by large scale miners. Sadly, without the technical competence required to operate in a complex and speculative global commodities market. The business of gold trading is not for spin doctors. It is not about lies and propaganda.
Their so-called “reset” is not a policy. It is packaging. It is cosmetics. A name-change masquerading as vision.
VII. What the Minority Demands
In the name of the Ghanaian people, we hereby demand:
(1) A Parliamentary Ad-hoc Investigative Committee with power to subpoena all contracts, licences, intermediaries, including the Bawa-Rock monopoly.
(2) Full National Disclosure: BoG and GoldBod must publish fee structures, pricing formulas, aggregator selection criteria, and all foreign-exchange arrangements tied to this scheme.
(3) Environmental Emergency Measures: Suspend permits in forest reserves; impose blockchain-based mine-level traceability for all purchases.
(4) Accountability — Without Fear or Favour: The Governor of the Bank of Ghana and the CEO of GoldBod must appear before the Committee and they must allow unhindered investigation.
Where negligence or corruption is proven, criminal prosecutions must follow and all recoverable funds clawed back.
VIII. A Call to Ghana
This crisis transcends politics.
This is about whether Ghana still has guardians or only spectators.
To chiefs, faith leaders, market women, students, unions, civil society, academia, and the diaspora, your voices are the only force left to defend our patrimony.
Fellow Ghanaians, gold may glitter, but truth endures.
May history record that when our gold was taken, our rivers poisoned, and our future mortgaged, we all stood up.
This is not a moment for spectators. It is a moment for citizens.
Rise.
Question.
Demand action!
Wishing all Ghanaians a reflective Christmas and a New Year fuelled by courage for our beloved nation.
Thank you.
