A Chartered Accountant has urged political actors and the public to resist the temptation to weaponise the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) reported financial losses, arguing that the figures reflect deliberate policy interventions and accounting standards rather than institutional failure or mismanagement.
Francis Abudu Zimmaleh, speaking in a media interview, said public discourse around the central bank’s recent financial performance has grown increasingly politicised, with many interpretations overlooking the technical realities of central banking operations. “Losses recorded by central banks do not necessarily indicate failure or poor management,” he said.
He attributed the BoG’s losses between 2022 and 2025 primarily to three factors: the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), which restructured government bonds held by the Bank and eroded their value; exchange rate fluctuations recorded under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS); and the interest costs of monetary tightening used to contain inflation. Under IFRS rules, cedi appreciation against major currencies reduces the cedi value of foreign reserves on paper, generating reported losses even when no reserves are actually liquidated.
The Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) added further losses, with cumulative costs between 2022 and 2024 exceeding GHS7 billion due to the gap between market-based purchase prices and official valuation rates. Combined with other factors, these contributed to a reported net loss of GHS15.63 billion in 2025 and a negative equity position of GHS93.82 billion. Zimmaleh noted that some assessments, incorporating broader accounting adjustments under Other Comprehensive Income (OCI), place total losses beyond GHS34.9 billion, a figure the government has contested.
He stressed that negative equity in a central bank carries fundamentally different implications than in a commercial bank, given that the BoG holds sovereign backing and the authority to issue currency. He also referenced International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessments, which described the gold programme losses as policy-driven costs and recommended they be absorbed through the national budget rather than the central bank’s balance sheet.
Despite the losses, Zimmaleh noted that gold operations generated approximately US$3.8 billion in foreign exchange inflows and helped push Ghana’s external reserves to roughly US$13.8 billion, equivalent to about 5.7 months of import cover. The BoG exited direct gold trading in 2026, transferring those functions to the Ghana Gold Board to allow the central bank to refocus on its core mandate.
He concluded by calling for improved transparency, greater public financial literacy and independent technical reviews, warning that both those who dismiss the losses as mere accounting entries and those who cite them as evidence of economic collapse are oversimplifying a complex issue.
