BoG, GoldBod move to ease funding problems for small-scale miners - Report

The ongoing impasse between Ghana’s Gold Board and the Bank of Ghana over the mechanism by which GoldBod can secure direly needed financing for its purchase of gold from local, licensed aggregators is threatening to the country’s forex inflow pipeline, since gold operations have been a foundational pillar for recent cedi recovery, generating over US$10 billion in foreign exchange inflows.

Consequently both institutions are working together to resolve their differences.

If GoldBod cannot quickly formalize a revised funded forexforward sale arrangement with the 15 interested banks that have so far submitted formal letters of interest to scale up the provision of short-term cedi loans to GoldBod to buy local artisanal gold, the steady, weekly injection of gold-backed forex into the economy could contract, reducing the market liquidity needed to defend the cedi against the US dollar

These commercial bank loans are secured against, and settled by, the guaranteed foreign exchange proceeds – in United States dollars – generated when GoldBod exports the gold to international off–takers.

The programme has been paused for consultations with the Bank of Ghana which has viewed GoldBod’s auction mechanism as inconsistent with its operational framework, with both institutions subsequently working to reconcile the divergence.

The central bank views GoldBod’s unilateral forex auctioning to commercial banks as inconsistent with its operating framework. As the sole statutory regulator of Ghana’s financial sector and foreign exchange markets, the BoG argues that a state-owned trading enterprise running its own parallel forex allocation mechanisms interferes with the central bank’s monetary policy, exchange rate stabilization efforts, and official FX market rules.

For its own part though GoldBod has requested that the BoGcompletely discontinue its intermediary role in facilitating currency exchanges for gold operations. GoldBod argues that it needs to engage commercial banks directly to quickly mobilize the short-term working capital (estimated between GH¢15 billion and GH¢20 billion) required to pay local artisanal gold suppliers before export proceeds hit their accounts.

Getting commercial banks to fund GoldBod’s purchasing activities has become critical to its ability to execute its mandate, since the Bank of Ghana withdrew from pre-financing the purchases in mid-year, following the International Monetary Fund’s concern that it was blowing a hole in the central bank’s balance sheet.

The IMF has consistently pushed back against central bank involvement in commodity trading across multiple programme countries, viewing such arrangements as a source of hidden fiscal risk and potential balance sheet damage.

GoldBod chief executive Sammy Gyamfi said last week the agency had raised nearly $839 million in advances from commercial banks and gold off–takers between March and May to keep purchases funded without central bank support.

However, since the BoG stepped back, the commercial banks have been reluctant to provide financing without government’s effective back-stop.

While banking executives have kept the names confidential due to ongoing compliance friction with the central bank’s operating framework, the sheer level of interest by 15 banks currently is being seen as huge progress over the state of affairs when this operational strategy commenced with fewer than five banks actively deploying capital to fund the initial US$75 million test auction on August 3, 2026.- an extremely narrow institutional base that signaled limited confidence among lenders in the sustainability of the arrangement without central bank involvement.

According to Reuters, licensed buyers operating within GoldBod’s network have gone without payment for periods of up to three weeks recently, as a result of the impasse. Theoperational consequences were significant and spread across Ghana’s two primary gold production zones, the Ashanti and Western Regions.

Across both regions, some operators paused purchasing activity entirely rather than accumulate gold without the working capital to pay sellers.

Others resorted to borrowing at commercial rates to maintain purchasing continuity, compressing already thin margins.

The payment delays land as GoldBod tightens the terms buyers must meet to access financing at all. Under a new trade financing framework that took effect August 1, licensed buyers must post collateral worth 10 to 50 percent of any advance and clear existing balances with aggregators before qualifying, while a separate rule taking effect September 1 requires buyers to invest in X-ray equipment to verify gold purity.

KwakuOhemeng Amoah, chief executive of the Chamber of Gold Buyers, has noted that the funding gap reflects the constraints GoldBod now faces without direct central bank backing, and buyers may need to secure supplementary financing on their own.

However, it is reported that commercial banks are now competing behind the scenes to join this specific pool because it allows them to capture primary, reliable US dollar flows directly from gold exports—bypassing standard central bank distribution queues.

While under the old system involving the BoG, financing risks were effectively state-guaranteed, under the new system they are self-secured through forward forex sales.

Gold Bod is also implementing tighter controls. Effective August 1, 2026, GoldBod introduced rigid due diligence, formal trade-financing agreements, and security guarantees. By validating commercial viability, GoldBod is trying to reassure commercial lenders who were previously uncomfortable lending without BoG guarantees.

Alongside the progress being made with the commercial banks,GoldBod is still leveraging Section 18 of the Gold Board Act, 2025, to source direct cash advances from global gold off–takers and large-scale aggregators, which has earned lots of financing so far this year, bypassing the central bank entirely.

The government launched GoldBod in 2025, establishing it as the exclusive authority for purchasing, selling, and exporting artisanal gold across the country.