The Personal Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has challenged former Finance Minister and New Patriotic Party (NPP) Policy Coordinating Committee member on Finance and Economy Dr Mohammed Amin Adam to explain the legal objects of GoldBod before questioning its foreign exchange activities.
Annan Perry said GoldBod was established, among other objectives, to generate foreign exchange for the country under Section 2(b) of the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140).
His comments follow Dr Amin Adam’s claim at a press conference on Tuesday, September 1 that GoldBod appeared to have expanded its operations beyond gold into foreign exchange transactions.
“GoldBod now appears to be operating a forex bureau. They are running foreign exchange sales and foreign exchange auctions,” Dr Amin Adam claimed.
According to Annan Perry, the foreign exchange generated by GoldBod through its gold exports is not intended to remain idle in the institution’s bank accounts but to be sold to the Bank of Ghana and/or its commercial banking partners in exchange for cedis.
He argued that the Cedis are then used to return to the market and purchase gold.
“When foreign exchange is generated by the GoldBod on a daily or weekly basis, what is the GoldBod supposed to do with such foreign currency? Decorate its bank account with it? No!” he said.
Annan Perry, therefore, questioned the characterisation of such transactions as foreign exchange trading, insisting that GoldBod does not buy foreign currency for speculative purposes but sells the foreign exchange it generates from its gold exports.
“How can anyone reasonably describe the sale of dollars by an entity to its bankers as FX trading?” he asked, adding that large-scale mining companies similarly sell repatriated export proceeds to their banks without being described as forex bureaux.
“FX trading involves buying and selling FX. The GoldBod does not buy FX. It only sells the FX it generates from its gold exports,” Mr Perry said.