Social activist and lawyer Osagyefo Oliver Barker Vormawor has challenged the Mahama administration to place public trust and transparency at the center of its economic policy communication, particularly on the Gold for Reserves programme involving the Bank of Ghana and the newly established GoldBod.
He argued that while complex reforms often come with costs, citizens deserve clear and honest explanations rather than slogans or reactive justifications. In a public reflection on the ongoing debate around gold trading reforms, Barker Vormawor said a single question had stayed with him throughout the week.
“Is it possible to have an honest, calm conversation about the costs and losses associated with the Gold-for-Reserves programme, without dishonest propaganda on one hand and without regressive claims of witch-hunting on the other?”
Osagyefo Oliver Barker Vormawor, Legal Practitioner and Activist
According to him, government failed to set the right tone from the outset. He maintained that there should have been a frank discussion about what it would cost to centralize gold trading, even while acknowledging the potential benefits.
He pointed to upfront inefficiencies, implementation expenses, risks, and trade-offs that accompany such a policy shift, stressing that these realities should have been communicated clearly before implementation rather than revealed gradually or defensively.
Good Policy Does Imply Cost Free Policy
Barker Vormawor emphasized that good policy does not imply cost free policy and that citizens are capable of understanding difficult choices when they are explained honestly.
He said what Ghanaians were owed was transparency, a clear roadmap, and consistent public reporting. He noted that GoldBod is required by law to publish quarterly reports on time but failed to comply, a lapse he described as damaging to public confidence.
He also criticized the manner in which the GoldBod legislation was passed, arguing that the bill was rushed through Parliament without sufficient public discussion. In his assessment, this was the first major failure in the process.
Failure to Carry Citizens Along
He said government did not take the opportunity to walk citizens through the programme step by step, explaining what was working, what was proving expensive, what challenges were emerging and how success should realistically be measured over time.
Instead, he observed that official communication often projected an image of extraordinary success, suggesting that the programme was nothing short of miraculous.
Barker Vormawor said this style of messaging is unhealthy for public policy because it discourages scrutiny and makes later disclosures appear contradictory or deceptive. He said he was not surprised when a wave of reactive press statements emerged following disclosures contained in an International Monetary Fund document.
He described it as deeply unfortunate that many Ghanaians first learned about the scale of the programme’s costs from an IMF document rather than from their own government.
According to him, this created poor optics and reinforced a troubling pattern where citizens receive critical information about their own country through external institutions.
Echoes of Past Experiences
Drawing historical parallels, Barker Vormawor said the situation echoed past experiences when governments concealed the true state of public finances, only for the reality to surface later through external reviews.
He expressed concern that Ghanaian governments often appear more accountable to international bodies than to the citizens who fund the state through taxes. In his view, this dynamic is unacceptable and reflects a lingering colonial mindset in governance.
He argued that citizens should not be second hand consumers of information about how their country is run. For him, the most significant loss in the GoldBod and Bank of Ghana episode is not financial but the erosion of trust.
Barker Vormawor said trust is built when the government speaks honestly to citizens, does not hide complexity behind slogans and treats the public as adults rather than cheerleaders.
“If this administration is serious about ‘resetting’, then it must not make it harder for Ghanaians to trust the government. Resetting begins with candour.”
Osagyefo Oliver Barker-Vormawor, Legal Practitioner and Activist
He urged the Mahama administration to remember where its first accountability lies, stressing that it is to the Ghanaian people and not to external partners.
While acknowledging the role of international institutions, he cautioned that governments should not govern primarily to satisfy them at the expense of domestic transparency.
Barker Vormawor concluded his remarks with a call for government to carry citizens along in policy making and communication. He insisted that Ghanaians are not children and deserve to be engaged honestly about national choices, even when those choices involve costs, risks and difficult trade offs. For him, sustained trust, not slogans, is the foundation of any meaningful national reset.
