Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin says he held a meeting this morning with the NPP Flagbearer Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at his private residence in Accra to discuss party matters and the agenda of the Minority as Parliament reconvenes for an emergency sitting called by the Speaker.
In a post on X, the Effutu MP disclosed that Dr. Bawumia expressed full confidence in his leadership of the Minority and urged him to stay focused on what he described as the loss of over $1.7 billion, equivalent to 1.5% of GDP, arising from the operations of GoldBod and the Bank of Ghana under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP).
According to Afenyo-Markin, Dr. Bawumia referenced the International Monetary Fund’s August 2026 Article IV report, which states that the significant scale-up of the DGPP in 2025 resulted in losses of over $1.7 billion, and cautioned against attempts to divert public attention from the issue.
“He called on the Minority, under my leadership, to do everything within the rules of the House to ensure the Mahama government is held fully accountable to the people of Ghana for this loss,” Afenyo-Markin wrote.
The Minority Leader said he assured the former Vice President that the Minority intends to prosecute the matter to the fullest extent, adding that the loss “is firmly on the Minority’s agenda as Parliament reconvenes today.”
“We remain resolute in this commitment, and we will not relent until the Ghanaian people receive the answers they deserve,” he added.
The $1.7 billion figure has dominated political debate in recent days. The Minority at a press conference on August 18 quoted Paragraph 13 of the IMF Selected Issues Paper No. 26/213, which attributes the DGPP losses to a combination of “service and assay fees paid to Gold Board, discount on gold sold to off-takers… and, most importantly, exchange rate losses from the spread between Forex Bureau rate paid to purchase gold and the Cedi reference rate used for BoG accounting.
”Government and GoldBod have pushed back. GoldBod CEO Sammy Gyamfi insists the IMF did not accuse GoldBod of making the loss, describing it as a Bank of Ghana cost. He says GoldBod’s Auditor-General-certified 2025 accounts show an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall surplus of GH¢5.4 billion.
Economists including Prof. Ebo Turkson of the University of Ghana have also clarified that the loss sits on the central bank’s books as a translation and operational cost of building gold reserves, not as a cash loss by GoldBod itself.
The emergency sitting is expected to be heated, with the Minority vowing to demand full accountability on the DGPP losses.
