Abena Osei-Asare Grills Bank of Ghana Boss at Public Accounts Committee on Gold-For-Oil, Others
- Governor of the Bank of Ghana Johnson Asiama faced inquiries about the suspended Gold-for-Oil programme at the Public Accounts Committee
- Asiama claimed programme suspension has prevented fuel queue build-up at petrol stations since March 2025
- Bank of Ghana confirmed $10 billion injection into the economy to stabilise exchange rates and enhance reserves
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The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Asiama, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee on January 12.
Among the issues that came up was the Gold-for-Oil programme, which Asiama defended suspending.
Source: Facebook
Citi News reported that he told the committee, chaired by Abena Osei-Asare, that the programme suffered operational challenges.
The suspension, announced in March 2025, marked a significant shift in the country’s economic strategy.
The programme, introduced by the previous government, was intended to reduce reliance on foreign exchange for fuel imports and help stabilise domestic fuel prices.
Asiama held before the committee that the programme has already produced positive outcomes.
“The first reference is to observe that since we cancelled the Gold-for-Oil in March 2025, we have not seen a build-up of queues at the pumps. One of the objectives of the policy was for that. So we believe that the cancellation was worth it.”
“There were too many issues under the Gold-for-Oil that we needed to unearth. Therefore, the board authorised an external audit into the policy. We got a PPA approval for the audit two months ago. That exercise is underway."
Among other issues, the Bank of Ghana boss also confirmed the injection of $10 billion into the economy since 2025 to stabilise the exchange rate and bolster the nation’s foreign reserves.
Nii Sowah Ahorlu, Head of Financial Marketing at the central bank, also gave some insight into the intervention.
The Gold for Oil programme has been a source of controversy, like the concerns that over $94 million in state funds were lost through Goldridge Refinery’s failure to honour trade settlements..
The objective of the programme was to shore up the cedi against volatility.
Minerals Income Investment Fund previously addressed the $90 million losses, saying its investigations revealed that the fund disbursed the cedi equivalent of $30 million in three tranches of $10 million each to its first aggregator, Goldridge, in 2023.
MIIF clarification on Gold for Oil
Minerals Income Investment Fund said its participation in the Gold for Oil programme, which has been terminated, did not involve any capital outlay from the fund.
It said its model involved oil bulk distribution companies providing cedis to the fund’s Trade Desk through the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors.
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It said this generated forex of circa $650 million to support the payment of fuel supplies between February 2024 to September 2024.
The forex delivered to the oil import market was, however, sub-Bloomberg mid-rate, thereby bringing stability to the cedi and supporting the purchase of oil prices at the pump, as confirmed by the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors.
Source: YEN.com.gh
