Ghana Gold Board Chief Executive Officer Sammy Gyamfi has dismissed allegations that GoldBod is responsible for $1.7 billion in losses under the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, describing Minority Leader Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin’s campaign against the institution as a smear driven by “sophistry and political blackmail in pursuit of selfish ends.”
Mr Gyamfi’s response came at the Government Accountability Series at Jubilee House on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, a day after the Minority Caucus held a press conference at Parliament House on Tuesday accusing GoldBod of driving the losses flagged in an International Monetary Fund report.
The exchange marks the latest escalation of a dispute that has run for weeks, moving from social media posts and radio interviews into a direct comparison of Afenyo-Markin’s own record as a former board chairman of the Electricity Company of Ghana.
“Devious Extortionists” and a Warning Against Settlement
Sammy Gyamfi framed the Minority’s campaign as a familiar tactic aimed at extracting a payout rather than establishing facts. “Afenyo-Markin’s continuing antics must therefore be seen for what they are, a desperate smear campaign by persons who are specialised in sophistry and political blackmail in pursuit of selfish ends,” he said
He described the pattern as one where “devious extortionists” level allegations against institutions in the hope that targets will “fold and settle for what they call compulsory arbitration and oil their palms.”
He said GoldBod had instead become the wrong target this time. Ghanaians, he argued, deserve public discourse grounded in facts and evidence rather than what he called the “endless recycling of fossils in the hope that repetition will lend credibility and turn fiction to facts.”
He pledged that the Board would remain focused on its mandate and continue to account transparently for its stewardship of the country’s gold resources.
The Figures Behind the Dispute
The clash centres on IMF Country Report No. 26/213, the Fund’s sixth and final review of Ghana’s Extended Credit Facility programme, which found that the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme generated losses exceeding $1.7 billion in 2025, equivalent to roughly GH¢22 billion and about 1.5 per cent of GDP.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Hon. Afenyo-Markin argued that GoldBod could not claim credit for the foreign exchange the programme generated while pushing every loss onto the Bank of Ghana’s balance sheet, and said the Auditor-General had not been given the full financial picture behind GoldBod’s reported surplus.
Mr Gyamfi has countered those claims by pointing to GoldBod’s own audited accounts. Citing page 16 of the Board’s Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended December 31, 2025, published by the Auditor-General.
He inssits the institution recorded an operational surplus of GH¢907 million and an overall surplus of GH¢5.4 billion, figures he has called incontrovertible and Afenyo-Markin’s loss allegation a “figment of his hallucinatory imagination.“
Turning to Afenyo-Markin’s Own Record at ECG
Mr Gyamfi rejected the suggestion that the criticism had rattled him, invoking a comparison to boxing to describe his posture toward political attacks. “Politics is a contact sport,” he said, adding that he considers himself “vaccinated against political attacks” and unworried by the exchange.
He then pivoted to Hon. Afenyo-Markin’s own institutional history, drawing a direct comparison between the treatment of two public officials.
He noted that the person under whose tenure the Electricity Company of Ghana recorded a loss of GH¢8.2 billion faces no onerous bail terms, questioning why GoldBod, under which he said Ghana has exported 170 tonnes of gold through formal channels and brought in over $17 billion in a year and a half, should be treated differently.
The reference is to Hon. Afenyo-Markin’s tenure as ECG Board Chairman from July 2024 to January 2025, during which the utility recorded a net loss of approximately GH¢8.2 billion for the 2024 financial year, a figure that became a recurring subject of political debate.
The Effutu MP has previously pushed back on being blamed for the full-year deficit, noting he was sworn in partway through the fiscal year and pointing to reforms he says he introduced.
These reforms according the Effutu MP includes scrapping older port-clearing and Bill of Lading vendor-validation practices in favour of a model that pays suppliers only on verified physical delivery, and drawing attention to legacy administrative lapses involving missing container consignments and equipment left at ports before his appointment.
Mr Gyamfi also pointed to a shift in the country’s gold value chain during his own tenure. He said that under the previous arrangement, not a gramme of Ghanaian gold was refined domestically, whereas GoldBod has bought and refined over nine metric tonnes of gold in Ghana so far this year, a change he described as altering the country’s value-addition story.
A Pointed Attack on the Minority Leader’s Standing
Sammy Gyamfi’s remarks extended into a direct critique of Afenyo-Markin’s conduct in the Minority Leader’s seat, invoking three of his predecessors by name.
He said the office once held by J.H. Mensah, Papa Owusu-Ankomah and Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu commanded respect for its depth and substance, and accused the current occupant of having “bastardised and depraved” the position.
He dismissed the Effutu Member of Parliament Hon. Afenyo-Markin’s public commentary as “the fanciful efficiency of a palm wine bar,” saying he treats such statements as comic relief.
He closed by rejecting any suggestion that he faces personal legal jeopardy over the allegations, saying he is “not afraid of any intimidating tactics” and that GoldBod’s results would speak for the institution over time.
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