Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa, says any losses under Ghana’s Gold-for-Reserves programme must be treated as commercial trading losses, not administrative failures.
Speaking on News File on Saturday, January 3, Simons emphasised that the nature of a trading loss is purely market-driven, occurring when gold is purchased at one price but cannot be sold at the same value by the end of the trading cycle. He warned that framing such outcomes as administrative errors is misleading.
“You cannot all of a sudden convert a trading loss into something that is purely an administrative matter. A trading loss means it is a commercial loss. It means that you bought the gold at a certain price, you did not realise that price in the end of the cycle. Nothing else will be a trading loss,” Simons explained.
His remarks come amid political scrutiny over a reported US$214 million loss under the Bank of Ghana’s Gold-for-Reserves programme, with the Minority in Parliament calling for a full-scale investigation into the contracts, fees, and pricing mechanisms to ensure transparency.
The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), led by CEO Sammy Gyamfi, has repeatedly denied incurring any losses. Sammy Gyamfi stressed that GoldBod is a public institution that measures success in surpluses rather than profits. For 2025, GoldBod recorded over GHS960 million in revenue against expenditures below GHS120 million and is expected to report a conservative surplus of between GHS700 million and GHS800 million.
Sammy Gyamfi also highlighted that the Gold-for-Reserves programme is fully funded by the Bank of Ghana, predates GoldBod’s creation in April 2025, and any reported losses relate to policy design rather than mismanagement by GoldBod.
Simons’ statement aligns with this view, clarifying that the nature of trading losses is inherently commercial and should not be mischaracterised as administrative failures.
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