Ghana’s central bank spent $1.7 billion in 2025 on a domestic gold-buying program, according to International Monetary Fund figures — a cost that raises fresh questions about the country’s fiscal health as it works through a debt restructuring.
The Bank of Ghana’s program to purchase gold from local miners — designed to build foreign-exchange reserves and reduce the country’s dependence on dollar-denominated commodity sales — carried a price tag of $1.7 billion last year, the IMF has disclosed. That figure represents a substantial outlay for an economy that has been under significant financial strain.
The gold-buying scheme works by allowing the central bank to acquire gold directly from domestic producers using local currency, then hold or sell that gold to shore up reserves. In theory, it helps Ghana keep more hard-currency earnings at home rather than losing them to international traders. In practice, the cost of running such a program depends heavily on how much gold is bought, at what price, and whether the reserves it builds are liquid enough to matter.
Ghana entered an IMF-supported bailout program in 2023 after a severe debt crisis pushed the country to restructure its external and domestic borrowings. Since then, Accra has been working to stabilize its public finances, rebuild reserves, and restore creditor confidence. A $1.7 billion outlay through the central bank adds complexity to that picture, since large quasi-fiscal operations — spending done through state institutions rather than the government budget — can obscure the true cost of a country’s financial recovery.
Gold is Ghana’s largest export, and the country is one of Africa’s top producers of the metal. Rising global gold prices have offered some relief, boosting the value of reserves held in bullion. But the IMF’s disclosure suggests the program’s gross cost was significant, and it is not yet clear how much of that outlay was offset by the market value of the gold acquired.
The findings are likely to feature in ongoing discussions between Ghanaian authorities and the IMF, which reviews the country’s progress under its bailout arrangement on a regular basis. Transparency around central bank operations is a standard condition of such programs, and the IMF typically scrutinizes quasi-fiscal activities closely.
Markets and creditors will be watching Ghana’s next IMF program review for more detail on how the gold scheme’s costs are accounted for within the country’s broader fiscal framework.
