‘You cannot claim the credit and push every loss to BoG’ – Minority to GoldBod

The Minority in Parliament has questioned GoldBod’s reported profit, insisting that its financial performance cannot be assessed without examining the losses allegedly generated through its gold purchasing and trading operations.

Addressing the media in Parliament, Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin said the caucus was concerned that GoldBod’s reported profit appeared to tell only part of the financial story, particularly where the associated costs and losses were reflected on the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet.

According to the Minority, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has identified service and assay fees, discounts on gold sold to off-takers and exchange-rate differences among the factors contributing to the reported losses.

Afenyo-Markin said GoldBod should not take credit for revenue from the gold trade while leaving the associated losses for the central bank to absorb.

“Gold Board took Bank of Ghana’s money to assay gold and collect its fees. It cannot claim the credit that comes with the revenue while pushing every loss into Bank of Ghana’s balance sheets.”

He also challenged GoldBod to disclose more information about the transactions, particularly the off-takers who allegedly purchased gold at discounted prices.

“We are asking straightforward questions and we expect straightforward answers. Who are the offtakers? Why were sales discounted? And why is the mandate to trade gold on the country’s behalf producing losses the country was never told about?”

The Minority Leader maintained that the issue was not about dismissing GoldBod’s reported profit but examining the underlying transactions and arrangements that produced it.

“We the minority are not here to really relegate the profit of Gold Board. The profit Gold Board has published it in its own account. We are here because what happened of the books, the operations, the free fee structures, the discounted sales that made that profit possible in the first place. Substance must always be judged over form.”

Afenyo-Markin said the concerns form part of the Minority’s decision to seek a fresh parliamentary investigation into the alleged $1.7 billion losses linked to the gold operations.

The controversy comes amid differing assessments of the domestic gold purchase programme, with GoldBod pointing to its audited accounts showing a profit, while the Minority continues to raise questions about losses allegedly recorded on the Bank of Ghana’s books.