The new governor of the Bank of Ghana, Johnson Asiama, has announced the suspension of the controversial \"gold for oil\" programme, while expressing confidence that the cedi, the national currency, will soon stabilise after a year of high volatility in 2024. In an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday, the 56-year-old leader, who was sworn in on 25 February 2025, revealed his priorities for turning around Ghana's economy, which is still reeling from the default on its debt in 2022.<\/p>\n
\"We intend to maintain an appropriate monetary policy,\" says Asiama, a PhD in economics trained at the University of Southampton. With interest rates held at 27% and inflation falling to 23.5% in January 2025, he is banking on better coordination between monetary and fiscal policies to ease price pressures. This approach builds on the commitments to fiscal discipline made by the administration of President John Mahama, elected last December, to restore market confidence.<\/p>\n
The cedi, which lost 19% of its value against the dollar in 2024, should avoid the \"extreme volatility\" seen recently, according to the governor. This forecast comes after a tumultuous period for Ghana, Africa's largest gold producer, which had to seek a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and restructure its debt following its default on its bonds three years ago.<\/p>\n
Introduced by the previous government, which was defeated by Mahama in the last elections, the \"gold for oil\" programme aimed to stabilise the currency by buying gold in cedis and then exchanging it for oil. By 2024, Ghana's oil import bill had risen to $4.5 billion, prompting the Bank of Ghana to acquire 65.4 tonnes of gold in September, 30.5 tonnes of which boosted its foreign exchange reserves by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
However, this mechanism has generated losses, although the extent of these has not been specified by Asiama. \"We had to incur losses on this,\" he told Bloomberg's Ondiro Oganga, before announcing the suspension of the programme. In future, he added, the central bank could hand over this responsibility to a future Gold Council, whose creation is imminent.<\/p>\n
Appointed against a backdrop of economic recovery, Asiama inherits an institution weakened by a record overspend of 60.9 billion cedis ($3.9 billion) in 2022, linked to loan cuts to meet IMF requirements. \"I can tell you with certainty that we will not record any losses this year\", he said, promising rigorous measures to control operating costs.<\/p>\n
This suspension marks a strategic shift for Ghana, which is seeking to stabilise its economy while capitalising on its gold resources. The end of the gold-for-oil programme and efforts to curb inflation and the central bank's losses could pave the way for a sustainable recovery, provided that fiscal and monetary commitments are met. As the country recovers from the trauma of its default, Asiama's decisions will be closely scrutinised by investors and international partners.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Le nouveau gouverneur de la Banque du Ghana, Johnson Asiama, a annonc\u00e9 la suspension du programme controvers\u00e9 \u00ab or contre p\u00e9trole \u00bb, tout en exprimant sa confiance dans…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","page_builder":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,631,676],"tags":[587,653,670,32],"class_list":["post-7089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualite","category-mines","category-petrole","tag-ghana","tag-mines","tag-or","tag-petrole"],"yoast_head":"\n