GoldBod CEO tells PAC establishment costs were one-off, including legal fees for drafting GoldBod Act, as Board defends GH¢5.44bn surplus claim
When the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) appeared on the books in 2025, it came with a big promise: buy Ghana’s gold, keep the forex, build the reserves. A year later, it came with a big argument: did it make money or lose US$1.7 billion?
On Tuesday, October 13, 2026, Chief Executive Sammy Gyamfi went before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to answer that question — and to explain what exactly the Board spent in its first year.
His message was simple: What you are seeing in the 2025 audited report is not waste. It is the cost of building a new state institution from scratch.
THE NUMBERS IN THE AUDITED REPORT
According to the 2025 Annual Report and Financial Statements signed off by the Auditor-General of Ghana, and presented by Gyamfi:
– Total Revenue: GH¢5.55 billion
– Total Expenditure: GH¢109.58 million / GH¢109.59 million
– Operational Surplus: GH¢907 million – GH¢909.7 million
– Overall Surplus: GH¢5.44 billion
Gyamfi explained the difference between the two surplus figures:
The GH¢909.7 million operational surplus is the real business result — revenue from GoldBod’s own operations minus its expenditure.
The GH¢5.44 billion overall surplus includes a GH¢4.5477 billion government grant / seed capital — the revolving equity budgeted by the Ministry of Finance in the 2025 Budget and credited to GoldBod on December 30, 2025, under the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140). Without that grant, GoldBod still made close to a billion cedis.
The Minority, led by Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has disputed that classification, arguing that grant revenue is not equity and that GH¢4.5 billion of the surplus is not from operations.
WHAT MADE UP THE GH¢109.58 MILLION EXPENDITURE?
This is where the PAC probe focused. Members questioned why a Board set up in 2025 would spend over GH¢100 million in one year.
Gyamfi told the Committee that most of the expenditure was one-off establishment costs that will not recur.
1. Legal Fees for Drafting the GoldBod Act, 2025 (Act 1140):
A key component, Gyamfi said, was legal fees paid for drafting the GoldBod Act itself, plus subsidiary regulations, compliance manuals, gold purchase agreements, and external solicitors for due diligence. The Act was drafted with support from private law firms and consultants before passage.
2. GH¢14.29 Million for Taskforce Deployment:
The single largest operational line disclosed at PAC was GH¢14.29 million spent on deploying GoldBod’s enforcement/compliance task force.
Breakdown provided to PAC:
– Equipment: body cams for officers, geo-tracked vehicles, communication gadgets
– Transport, accommodation and allowances
– Control room at head office for real-time monitoring
3. Assay and Operational Fees Structure:
Gyamfi disclosed that GoldBod handled about GH¢133 billion in advances under the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) / Gold-for-Reserves programme in 2025.
Its fees, which are revenue to GoldBod but cost to the BoG programme, were:
– 0.258% assay fee — as the National Assayer (inherited from the defunct Precious Minerals Marketing Company – PMMC)
– 0.5% service fee — covering logistics, security, insurance, transport, smelting losses
– Total: 0.758% — amounting to GH¢337.43 million in assay fees and GH¢558.14 million in service charges = GH¢895.57 million of its revenue.
ALL THE AGENCIES IN THE GOLDBOD ECOSYSTEM
The PAC hearing showed GoldBod is not operating alone. The following institutions were mentioned:
– Parliament of Ghana (Public Accounts Committee) — oversight body grilling GoldBod
– Ministry of Finance — provided GH¢4.5bn seed capital / grant
– Bank of Ghana (BoG) — principal under DGPP; buys gold through GoldBod, authorizes GoldBod’s forex sales
– Auditor-General of Ghana — audited 2025 accounts, confirmed no adverse findings
– Ghana Armed Forces / Military — provides personnel for task force
– Ghana Police Service — provides personnel for task force
– National Security Secretariat — recruits civilian component of task force
– Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) / Now defunct — predecessor whose September 2023 Gold Purchase Agreement with BoG was inherited by GoldBod
– International Monetary Fund (IMF) — whose 5th Review report cited BoG losses of $400m in 2024 and $1.7bn in 2025 under DGPP, triggering the political debate
– Institute for Economic and Fiscal Policy Governance — independent think-tank that backed GoldBod’s surplus claim
THE US$1.7 BILLION CONTROVERSY EXPLAINED
The Minority’s core allegation is not that GoldBod itself declared a loss, but that GoldBod’s activities contributed to a US$1.7 billion loss incurred by the Bank of Ghana in 2025 under the DGPP, as reported by the IMF.
Gyamfi’s defence before PAC:
1. GoldBod did not exist in 2024, yet BoG incurred $400m loss that year. “Who caused that loss?”
2. GoldBod’s role in 2025 was only as a buying agent — buying gold, assaying, delivering. It had no role in BoG’s sale of gold, off-take agreements, pricing, or forex decisions.
3. BoG’s losses are “accounting losses” and “valuation effects” from a deliberate monetary policy — buying gold at spot price to build reserves and stabilize the cedi, not a trading loss.
4. GoldBod does not trade currency. It only sells the forex it generates from gold exports to get cedis to buy more gold, under Section 2B of Act 1140 and with BoG authorization.
GYAMFI’S CLOSING ARGUMENT TO PAC: ONE-OFF COSTS
“We had to procure body cams, geo-tracked vehicles, set up a control room, draft the law, rent offices, recruit. These are establishment costs captured in the 2025 audited report. They are one-off costs that would not be incurred in subsequent years,” Gyamfi told the Committee.
He added that the Auditor-General had unrestricted access and the audit contained no adverse findings on procurement breaches or PFM Act violations.
The PAC has requested supporting documents for the forex sales authorization, task force procurement, and legal fees — which GoldBod says it will provide.
For now, the debate has shifted: Is GoldBod a GH¢5.44 billion success story or a GH¢109 million expensive start-up whose fees cost the central bank US$1.7 billion? The audited books say surplus. The IMF numbers say BoG loss. Parliament’s PAC will have to decide whose accounting tells the fuller truth.