Should the IMF decide how Ghana uses its gold?

The International Monetary Fund’s concerns about Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme deserve serious attention. According to the IMF, the programme generated substantial losses for the Bank of Ghana, with the 2025 losses estimated at about GH¢22 billion, or roughly US$1.7 billion.

The Fund has consequently raised concerns about governance, transparency, reporting, risk management and the involvement of the central bank in quasi-fiscal activities.

These are legitimate concerns. Ghana should not dismiss them simply because they come from the IMF.

But neither should the IMF’s assessment end the national discussion.

The more important question is whether Ghana should abandon an economic strategy because it proved costly in its original form, or whether the country should learn from its weaknesses and redesign it to better serve the national interest.

The Losses Are Real, but So Were the Benefits

There is little value in pretending that the losses identified by the IMF do not matter. They do.

The IMF has explained that the costs associated with the programme included trading losses, fees and exchange-rate effects. If these operations weakened the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet, Ghana must take that seriously.

Central banks cannot continuously absorb large commercial losses without consequences.

Their primary responsibilities include maintaining price stability, protecting the integrity of the monetary system and managing reserves. Excessive quasi-fiscal activities can compromise those responsibilities.

On this point, the IMF deserves to be heard.

However, there is another side of the story that must receive equal attention.

The IMF itself has acknowledged that Ghana’s gold programme contributed to rebuilding international reserves, reducing pressure on the foreign-exchange market and formalising parts of the artisanal gold trade. During Ghana’s severe economic and debt crisis, these were not insignificant achievements.

The IMF reported that scaling up the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme helped the Bank of Ghana meet its reserve accumulation objectives and reach its programmed reserve-coverage target earlier than expected.

That creates an important distinction.

The question is no longer simply:

Did the programme lose money?

The evidence indicates that it did.

The more important question is:

Did Ghana, as an economy, receive sufficient benefits from the programme to justify some or all of those costs—and could those benefits have been achieved at a substantially lower cost?

That is the question Ghana must now answer.

An Accounting Loss Is Not Automatically the Entire Economic Loss

Public policy cannot always be evaluated in the same way as the profit-and-loss account of a private company.

Governments and central banks sometimes undertake interventions because they generate wider economic benefits that do not appear directly on the institution’s balance sheet.

That does not justify unlimited losses. Neither does it excuse poor management. It simply means that proper evaluation requires examining both costs and benefits.

If Ghana spent heavily purchasing gold but, in the process, strengthened its reserves, increased foreign-exchange availability, supported currency stability and brought more gold exports into formal channels, those benefits must also be quantified.

What was the economic value of stronger reserves during Ghana’s debt crisis? What was the value of reduced pressure on the cedi?

What was gained by formalising gold purchases that might otherwise have passed through informal or illegal channels?

And critically, could Ghana have achieved the same benefits for considerably less than GH¢22 billion?

That last question may ultimately be the most important.

A policy can have the correct strategic objective and still be implemented badly. If Ghana paid GH¢22 billion for benefits that could have been achieved for GH¢5 billion, the programme cannot be defended merely because it produced benefits.

Equally, if substantial national economic gains are ignored because attention is focused exclusively on the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet, the evaluation would also be incomplete.

Ghana therefore needs a rigorous cost-benefit assessment—not political slogans from either side.

Should the IMF Be Telling Ghana What to Do?

This controversy raises a broader issue about Ghana’s relationship with the IMF. Some Ghanaians understandably ask why an international institution should have so much influence over how Ghana manages its own gold resources.

But we must be careful.

The IMF did not simply arrive in Ghana uninvited and take control of the economy.

Ghana approached the Fund after experiencing a severe economic crisis and entered into a programme in exchange for financial assistance and international support.

When a country borrows from an institution, that institution will naturally demand conditions intended to protect its resources and restore the borrower’s financial stability.

Moreover, IMF scrutiny is not limited to Ghana or Africa.

The Fund regularly reviews the economies of developed countries, including the

United States, United Kingdom and Japan. It comments on their fiscal deficits, public debts, monetary policies and structural weaknesses.

There is, however, an important difference.

The IMF can advise the United States, but it cannot exercise the same leverage over Washington that it can exercise over Accra.

The United States, Japan or the United Kingdom can reject an IMF recommendation without immediately facing a financing crisis.

Ghana’s position is different because repeated economic difficulties have made the country dependent on external financial assistance and international creditor confidence. T his creates an unavoidable imbalance.

The best way to reduce IMF influence, therefore, is not by attacking the IMF.

It is by reducing Ghana’s dependence on the IMF.

Ghana Must Eventually Outgrow IMF Dependence

Ghana has returned to the IMF repeatedly since independence.

That should concern us more than the IMF giving Ghana economic advice.

Why does a country blessed with gold, cocoa, oil, gas, fertile agricultural land and a relatively educated population repeatedly find itself unable to manage its public finances and foreign-exchange requirements without external rescue?

The answer cannot always be colonialism, international markets or the IMF.

We must also examine ourselves.

Persistent fiscal indiscipline, excessive borrowing, inefficient public expenditure, corruption, weak institutions, poorly managed state enterprises and short-term political decision-making have repeatedly weakened Ghana’s economy.

Economic sovereignty cannot simply be proclaimed.

It must be earned through sound economic management.

A country that continually needs external financing inevitably gives external financiers influence over its economic decisions. If Ghana wants greater policy independence, it must build the financial strength that makes such independence possible.

But Ghana Should Not Outsource Its Economic Thinking

At the same time, Ghana must resist another danger: believing that IMF orthodoxy represents the only legitimate form of economic policy.

The IMF understandably emphasises fiscal discipline, central-bank independence, price stability and limits on quasi-fiscal activities. These principles are important.

But Ghana is not the United States, Britain or Japan.

Ghana remains a developing commodity-producing economy facing structural unemployment, limited industrialisation, foreign-exchange constraints and vulnerability to external shocks.

Macroeconomic stability is therefore necessary, but stability alone cannot constitute a development strategy.

Ghana must think beyond stabilisation towards transformation.

And gold provides an excellent example.

Ghana has exported gold for generations. It remains one of Africa’s leading gold producers. Yet the country continues to experience foreign-exchange shortages, currency instability and periodic balance-of-payments crises.

We should ask ourselves a difficult question:

How can a major gold-producing country repeatedly run short of foreign exchange?

There is something structurally wrong with an economic model that exports enormous quantities of valuable natural resources while repeatedly seeking external assistance to stabilise its currency and rebuild reserves.

That is the deeper issue Ghana must confront.

The Answer Is Not to Abandon Gold Strategy but to Improve It

The lesson from the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme should not necessarily be that Ghana must stop using its gold strategically.

The lesson may instead be that the institutional arrangement was too expensive and placed inappropriate risks on the Bank of Ghana.

Moving gold purchasing and trading operations away from the central bank may therefore be sensible.

GoldBod or any institution performing that role should, however, operate under strict transparency, professional risk management and independent oversight.

Its transactions should be properly accounted for. Its costs should be publicly understood. Parliament and the appropriate regulatory institutions should be able to scrutinise its activities.

Most importantly, losses should not simply migrate from one public institution to another.

Removing a loss from the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet does not make it disappear if Ghanaian taxpayers ultimately bear the cost.

Ghana Needs a Comprehensive Independent Assessment

The debate has become unnecessarily political.

One side appears determined to portray the entire gold programme as an economic disaster. The other is tempted to defend it because of its contribution to reserves, gold exports and currency stability.

Ghana needs something better than either position.

The government should commission or publish a comprehensive independent economic assessment of the programme.

It should clearly establish the total financial cost, the sources of the losses and the institutions that ultimately carried them.

But it should go further.

It should quantify the contribution of the programme to reserve accumulation, foreign-exchange availability, exchange-rate stability and formalisation of gold exports. It should examine whether gold smuggling was reduced and whether Ghana captured more value from its mineral resources.

Then economists should determine whether those benefits could have been obtained through a less costly mechanism.

Only then will Ghana have the evidence required to make an informed decision.

Listen to the IMF—but Ghana Must Make the Final Decision

The IMF should not be treated as Ghana’s enemy.

Neither should it become Ghana’s economic planning ministry.

When the IMF identifies weaknesses in governance, transparency, fiscal management or central-bank operations, Ghana should listen carefully. Where mistakes have been made, they should be corrected. Where public resources have been lost unnecessarily, there must be accountability.

But Ghana should never outsource its economic thinking.

The responsibility for determining how Ghana uses its gold, cocoa, oil and other national resources ultimately belongs to Ghanaians.

The objective should therefore not be to reject the IMF.

Nor should it be to obey the IMF automatically.

Ghana must develop the intellectual, institutional and financial capacity to examine IMF recommendations, accept those that serve the national interest, modify those that require adaptation and reject those that do not suit the country’s long-term development objectives.

There is nothing sovereign about repeatedly borrowing from international institutions and then complaining that they have too much influence over national policy.

True economic sovereignty comes when a country manages its resources well enough to finance its development, maintain economic stability and defend its policy choices with credible evidence. Ghana should aim for the day when the IMF can raise concerns about a national policy and Ghana can confidently respond:

“We understand your concerns. We have examined the evidence. We have corrected the weaknesses. But our analysis shows that this policy, properly designed and managed, serves Ghana’s long-term national interest.”

That is the relationship Ghana should seek with the IMF.

Not confrontation.

Not submission.

Partnership—with Ghana firmly in charge of Ghana’s development.