The Bank of Ghana (BoG) recorded a net loss of GH¢15.63 billion in 2025, nearly double its GH¢9.49 billion deficit the previous year, as the costs of aggressive monetary tightening and gold reserve accumulation weighed heavily on its books. Yet senior officials say the figures, while striking, reflect policy success rather than institutional failure.
The central bank’s 2025 audited financial statements, released on April 30, 2026, reveal an institution under considerable financial pressure. Total liabilities exceeded total assets by a significant margin, pushing the BoG’s negative equity position to GH¢93.82 billion, sharply wider than the GH¢58.62 billion reported at the end of 2024. The primary driver of the balance sheet weakness remains Ghana’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, which imposed substantial losses on government securities the Bank held as a major sovereign creditor.
The single largest contributor to the 2025 loss was the cost of open market operations (OMO), which reached GH¢16.7 billion, nearly double the GH¢8.6 billion recorded in 2024. These operations, which involve the issuance of short-term instruments to absorb excess liquidity from the banking system, are central to the BoG’s inflation control strategy but carry significant interest costs. The intensification of those operations in 2025 contributed directly to the widening loss.
Despite the headline numbers, officials speaking on TV3’s Key Points programme on Saturday, May 2, 2026, pushed back against characterisations of institutional distress. Paul Bleboo, Head of Gold Management at the central bank, addressed one of the most contested figures in public debate: the GH¢9.05 billion accounting cost recorded under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) in 2025, up from GH¢5.66 billion in 2024. “The DGPP loss should be interpreted as a cost of the programme, not a loss,” he said, explaining that the apparent shortfall arises from a structural accounting gap between the forex bureau exchange rate at which gold is purchased and the official rate at which it is recorded on the Bank’s books.
Bleboo provided historical context for the programme’s expansion. From 3.5 tonnes procured in 2022 at a cost of GH¢74 million, the DGPP scaled sharply to 37 tonnes in 2023 following the introduction of the Gold-for-Oil policy, and to 56 tonnes in 2024. By 2025, the programme had accumulated more than 100 tonnes, with the BoG maintaining approximately 18.6 tonnes of gold in its portfolio after a deliberate rebalancing exercise.
That rebalancing was addressed separately by Gershon Kudjo Agbledzorwu, Head of the Financial Markets Department, who confirmed that the BoG’s Board resolved in the second half of 2025 to reduce its gold bullion share after it exceeded internationally accepted thresholds. “The best practice of bullion composition in reserves should not be more than 20 percent,” he said, noting that gold had risen to approximately 42 percent of Ghana’s gross international reserves by late 2025, driven by record global gold prices. The sale of approximately 19 tonnes generated a realised profit of over US$1.3 billion, which was retained within the reserve portfolio rather than repatriated or spent. Gross international reserves rose from US$9.1 billion at the end of 2024, equivalent to 4.1 months of import cover, to US$13.8 billion by the close of 2025, representing 5.7 months of import cover.
On the question of the central bank’s operational viability, officials pointed to a concept known as policy solvency: the Bank’s ability to fund its monetary operations from its own income without external support. In 2025, the BoG recorded GH¢5.5 billion in operating income after deducting the cost of OMO activities, compared with GH¢793.5 million in 2024, a figure officials described as confirmation that the Bank can continue to implement monetary policy independently.
Looking ahead, the Bank has entered a formal recapitalisation agreement with the Ministry of Finance covering the period from 2026 to 2032. Under the arrangement, the government will inject capital in structured phases, in cash or financial instruments, with the aim of restoring positive equity and rebuilding the central bank’s financial resilience. The success of that programme, alongside continued disinflation and exchange rate stability, will be central to the BoG’s recovery trajectory.
