The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana’s Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has urged critics of the state-owned gold trading institution to base claims about its financial performance on accurate information, as political scrutiny over its operations intensifies.

Mr Gyamfi acknowledged that GoldBod could incur losses in the course of trading but said isolated losses should not be used to give a misleading impression of the institution’s overall financial position.

“Nobody is saying there hasn’t been loss, but be factual about it,” he said at the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday.

His comments come amid a dispute over GoldBod’s financial performance, with Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin demanding explanations over what he has described as a GHC22 billion loss involving the institution.

Mr Gyamfi rejected the characterisation and said GoldBod’s performance should be assessed within the context of its specialised mandate to purchase and trade gold.

He said the institution was established to assume commercial and trading functions in the gold sector that did not fall within the core mandate of the Bank of Ghana.

According to Mr Gyamfi, the central bank’s primary responsibility is monetary and financial stability, while GoldBod was created with the mandate and capacity to operate commercially in the gold market.

He said GoldBod’s trading activities had expanded considerably since March, moving beyond physical gold transactions to include derivatives and other forms of gold trading.

“We don’t only buy physical gold, we trade derivatives. And we trade gold 24/7,” he said.

Mr Gyamfi acknowledged that the nature of such trading exposed GoldBod to both gains and losses, but argued that the appropriate measure was its overall financial outcome rather than individual losses recorded during particular transactions.

“In trading, you can make profit, you can make losses. We’re going to ensure that at the end of the year, your overall profit is more than your losses,” he said.

The GoldBod chief therefore called for a more evidence-based debate about the institution’s finances, saying claims about losses should be supported by its actual financial records.

His comments come as GoldBod faces growing political scrutiny over its financial performance and the role it plays in Ghana’s gold trading sector.