Patricia Appiagyei
The Minority in Parliament has called for a parliamentary inquiry into losses associated with the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), demanding that the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) account fully for the financial discrepancies identified in an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report.
The call follows a series of public responses by the Chief Executive Officer of GoldBod, Sammy Gyamfi, to questions raised by the Minority regarding the financial position of GoldBod and the gold purchase programme it administers.
In a statement issued last Saturday and signed by the Deputy Minority Leader, Patricia Appiagyei, the Minority said the losses associated with the programme were not claims manufactured by the opposition but were identified in an official report by the IMF.
“The losses associated with the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme were not conjured by the Minority,” the statement said.
It stressed that the IMF was an independent and internationally respected institution whose assessments should not be casually dismissed.
The Minority said it had been seeking, and would continue to seek, a full and transparent reconciliation of GoldBod’s audited financial statements with the losses identified in the IMF report.
According to the Minority, the issue constituted a legitimate matter of parliamentary oversight because the programme involved significant public resources and therefore required transparency and accountability.
It said GoldBod should provide clear answers to the questions surrounding the programme instead of allowing the debate to degenerate into a dispute over who had the authority to raise concerns about its operations.
The Minority is consequently demanding that GoldBod appear before a Parliamentary Inquiry to explain the losses and reconcile them with its audited financial statements.
It said the proposed inquiry would provide an opportunity for the relevant financial records to be examined and tested through parliamentary scrutiny, allowing the facts to be established on the public record.
“Accordingly, we call on GoldBod to appear before a Parliamentary Inquiry to account fully for the losses identified in the IMF’s report and to reconcile them with its own audited financial statements,” the statement said.
The Minority maintained that the matter should ultimately be settled by facts and evidence rather than public accusations from either side.
The opposition also took issue with what it described as personal characterisations directed at Minority Members of Parliament (MPs), including the Minority Leader, by Mr. Gyamfi during his responses to the concerns.
It said it would not respond to the alleged personal attacks in similar fashion but rejected what it described as false allegations against its members.
The Minority stressed that questioning the operations and finances of a public institution was a fundamental aspect of parliamentary accountability.
“No public official is entitled to mischaracterise such oversight as wrongdoing,” it said.
The Minority further urged public officials to observe the standards of civility, restraint and respect prescribed under Ghana’s Code of Conduct and Ethics for political appointees.
It said it expected all public officials, including the GoldBod CEO, to adhere to those standards and indicated that it would pursue appropriate institutional channels concerning the matter.
The Minority said it remained committed to scrutinising the management of public assets and would continue to raise questions where it considered them necessary.
It added that such scrutiny would be conducted in a factual and measured manner consistent with the dignity of public office.
By Ernest Kofi Adu
