Former Finance Minister Dr Mohamed Amin Adam has raised fresh concerns over the financial health of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), arguing that the institution’s 2025 losses are significantly understated due to accounting treatments tied to gold reserve sales.
In a statement reflecting on the Bank’s long-awaited 2025 financial statements, Dr Amin Adam said earlier suspicions of “smart accounting” have now been validated, pointing to what he describes as attempts to mask inefficiencies and the true cost of economic management.
At the centre of the controversy is the reported sale of approximately 18 tonnes of Ghana’s gold reserves—assets accumulated under the previous administration. The transaction generated about GH¢40.3 billion, yielding a net gain of GH¢9.57 billion.
While the BoG initially justified the move as part of a reserve portfolio rebalancing strategy, Dr Amin Adam questioned the rationale.
According to him, there was no compelling macroeconomic justification for reducing gold holdings, especially when existing policy frameworks had emphasized building reserves rather than drawing them down.
More critically, he highlighted how the proceeds were treated in the bank’s accounts. The GH¢9.57 billion gain from the gold sale was reclassified from equity and recognized as realized income in the profit and loss statement—a move he argues significantly alters the perception of the Bank’s financial performance.
“This is critical,” he emphasized, noting that the reported net loss of GHS15.6 billion for 2025 does not tell the full story. Without including the gold sale gains as income, he estimates that the Bank’s losses would have exceeded GHS25 billion—and potentially even surpassed GHS40 billion when all related transactions are fully accounted for.
“In plain terms,” he explained, “even after selling gold, the Bank still recorded a massive loss. Without it, the situation would have been far worse.”
The former minister also pointed to the Bank’s rising monetary policy costs, particularly the expense of sterilization operations, which reached GH¢16.73 billion in 2025.
He argued that without the gold sale proceeds, the Bank’s operating income—estimated at GH¢12.7 billion—would have been insufficient to cover these costs.
The BoG’s own report, he notes, acknowledges that its “strong policy solvency position” in 2025 was largely supported by the inflow from bullion gold sales—further reinforcing his claim that the transactions were not merely about reserve management but essential to cushioning deeper financial losses.
Dr. Amin Adam also credited the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, an initiative associated with Mahamudu Bawumia, with providing a crucial buffer for the central bank during this period.
However, he criticized what he described as a reluctance by current authorities to acknowledge the role of past policies in stabilizing the situation.
He concluded by warning that reliance on asset sales to offset operational losses is not a sustainable solution.
“Using gold reserves to absorb losses does not eliminate the problem—it only masks it,” he said. “It conceals the true cost of policy decisions and delays the necessary corrective actions.”
The remarks add to the growing debate over the Bank of Ghana’s financial management and the broader implications for economic policy credibility and transparency.
BoG posts GH¢15.6 billion loss in 2025
The central bank reported a substantially wider net loss of GH¢15.6 billion for the 2025 financial year, marking a sharp deterioration from the GH¢9.4 billion loss recorded in 2024.
This latest performance underscores the mounting financial cost of the central bank’s aggressive policy measures to restore macroeconomic stability following a turbulent period marked by high inflation, exchange-rate volatility, and weakened investor confidence.
According to the central bank’s audited financial statements, the expanded loss reflects the cumulative impact of tight monetary policy, extensive liquidity management operations, and strategic reserve accumulation efforts.
While these measures have placed considerable strain on the Bank’s financial position, they have also contributed to notable improvements in key economic indicators, particularly inflation and external reserve levels.
The headline loss was further exacerbated by a significant adjustment of GH¢19.32 billion recorded under other comprehensive income. This accounting charge primarily captures the valuation effect of a stronger Ghanaian cedi during the year.
As the local currency appreciated, the cedi value of the Bank’s foreign-denominated assets—including reserves held in US dollars and gold—declined when converted into domestic terms. Although this resulted in a large reported loss, it does not reflect an actual reduction in the underlying assets.
The combined effect of these financial pressures has led to a notable weakening of the central bank’s balance sheet. In 2025, the Bank of Ghana recorded a negative equity of GH¢35 billion, pushing its accumulated negative equity to GH¢96.3 billion.
This represents a sharp increase from GH¢61.3 billion at the end of 2024 and a stark reversal from the positive equity position of GH¢1.2 billion reported just a year earlier. The rapid shift highlights the scale of financial sacrifices made in pursuit of economic stabilization.
Bank officials have described the situation as the inevitable “cost of the work that was done,” emphasizing that the losses are closely tied to deliberate policy actions aimed at bringing inflation under control and stabilizing the currency.
At the heart of these actions is a robust monetary tightening strategy that required the central bank to absorb excess liquidity from the banking system.
In 2025, the BoG intensified its liquidity sterilization operations by issuing short-term instruments to mop up surplus cash circulating within the economy.
These instruments, while effective in reducing inflationary pressures, come at a financial cost because the central bank must pay interest to investors who hold them. As a result, the cost of sterilization nearly doubled from GH¢8.6 billion in 2024 to GH¢16.7 billion in 2025.
This surge in expenditure significantly eroded the Bank’s profitability but yielded tangible macroeconomic benefits. Inflation, which had remained persistently high in 2024, dropped by 18 percentage points in 2025. This sharp decline suggests that the central bank’s tightening measures achieved their intended objective.
For households and businesses, lower inflation translates into improved purchasing power, more stable prices, and a more predictable economic environment—conditions that are essential for sustainable growth.
Another major contributor to the Bank’s loss position is the cost of its gold accumulation program. In 2025, the central bank recorded an accounting cost of GH¢9 billion related to this initiative, up from GH¢5.7 billion in 2024.
The programme has significantly expanded Ghana’s gold reserves, increasing holdings to approximately 111 tonnes in 2025 from less than one tonne in 2021.
Although this strategy has weighed on the Bank’s income statement in the short term, its long-term economic implications are widely viewed as positive.
By building up gold reserves, the central bank is strengthening the country’s external buffer, enhancing confidence in the national currency, and reducing dependence on external borrowing.
In effect, the BoG is deliberately incurring short-term financial losses to secure long-term financial resilience and stability. Exchange rate dynamics also played a crucial role in shaping the Bank’s financial outcome.
The appreciation of the cedi during 2025 led to a decline in the domestic value of foreign reserves, resulting in the GH¢19.32 billion charge recorded in other comprehensive income.
