When the Bank of Ghana (BoG) published its 2025 Annual Report on May 1 2026, critics responded swiftly and predictably.
A GH₵15.63 billion operating loss. A GH₵34.95 billion total comprehensive loss. Negative equity widening from GH₵61.3 billion to GH₵96.3 billion.
Taken in isolation, those numbers make for uncomfortable reading. But that is precisely the problem: they are being taken in isolation. Numbers stripped of context do not tell a story. They start one.
This piece tells the rest of it.
Part I: Central Banks Losing Money Is Not a Ghanaian Story
Before examining what the Bank of Ghana lost, it is worth posing a more fundamental question: which major central banks were actually profitable in 2025?
The European Central Bank posted a loss of €1.25 billion, its third consecutive losing year, following a €7.94 billion loss in 2024 and €1.27 billion in 2023. The ECB has confirmed it will make no profit distribution to euro area central banks for 2025. This is the institution managing the monetary affairs of nineteen nations with a combined GDP of roughly €14 trillion.
The US Federal Reserve is in a structurally more precarious position. By September 2025, accumulated losses had produced a so-called deferred asset of $242 billion, an accounting device that permits the Fed to avoid reporting negative equity on the face of its balance sheet.
This is a presentational fiction unavailable to commercial banks operating under standard accounting rules. Net income across the Federal Reserve System has been negative since late 2024. The institution that issues the world’s reserve currency is, by any orthodox accounting measure, technically insolvent.
The Bank of England has required an explicit Treasury indemnity to absorb losses arising from its quantitative tightening programme. The Bundesbank depleted its entire risk provisions buffer in 2023 as it absorbed losses on its quantitative easing-era bond portfolio. These are not peripheral or fragile institutions. They are the most powerful central banks on earth, and each is carrying significant financial losses.
The reason is the same in every case: the cost of fighting inflation. When central banks raise interest rates and deploy open market operations to absorb excess liquidity from the financial system, there is a price to be paid.
The ECB incurred losses because interest paid on its liabilities rose faster than income earned on the fixed-rate bonds it purchased during the pandemic. The Federal Reserve faced an identical inversion. These outcomes are not management failures. They are the mechanical and foreseeable consequences of executing a monetary policy mandate.
Ghana’s experience follows the same analytical logic, though from a considerably more difficult starting position. To bring inflation down from its 2022 to 2023 peak of 54.1%, the Bank of Ghana deployed open market operations aggressively throughout 2025.
The total cost of those operations reached GH₵16.73 billion, nearly double the GH₵8.60 billion recorded in 2024. That expenditure purchased Ghana a measurable reduction in inflation and a stabilisation of the exchange rate. It was not a sign of institutional dysfunction. It was the calculable price of monetary recovery.
Part II: Where Ghana Stands Among African Peers
Critics who invoke continental comparisons in this debate tend to select their evidence with considerable care. The South African Reserve Bank is frequently cited as the preferred counterexample, given its profitability in 2023/24, its positive equity position, and its relatively stable currency. What is consistently omitted from that comparison is the fact that South Africa did not undergo a sovereign debt restructuring.
The SARB balance sheet was never subjected to anything analogous to Ghana’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme. South African inflation, while elevated, did not approach 54%. The SARB reserve position, accumulated over decades and supported by a substantially larger export base, does not constitute a meaningful benchmark for an economy that was locked out of international capital markets only three years ago.
The Central Bank of Nigeria provides a more analytically honest comparison. Between 2023 and 2025, the naira lost over 70% of its value against the dollar. The CBN underwent multiple rounds of painful foreign exchange market reform and faced sustained reserve management pressure under intense public scrutiny. Ghana’s position is not exceptional within the African context.
It reflects a pattern common to small, open, commodity-dependent economies that have been navigating the combined pressures of post-pandemic inflation, global monetary tightening, and the legacy of domestic fiscal imbalances.
What distinguishes Ghana, in the African context, is the coherence and ambition of the institutional response. The Domestic Gold Purchase Programme represents a structural policy innovation with no direct equivalent among comparable economies on the continent.
The GoldBod integration has formalised a channel through which domestically produced gold is converted into official reserves. These are deliberate and consequential policy choices that are already generating measurable returns. They merit assessment on their own terms, rather than being obscured by headline loss figures.
Part III: Reading the Numbers Properly
Critics have identified three figures from the 2025 accounts as particularly damning. Each requires careful disaggregation.
The GH₵15.63 billion operating loss is attributable principally to the cost of open market operations described in the preceding section. It is a real expenditure. It is also a deliberate one. Every percentage point reduction in inflation achieved during 2025 has a corresponding and quantifiable cost registered in this line item of the income statement.
The GH₵19.32 billion Other Comprehensive Income loss is the figure most widely misunderstood in the public debate. This loss arose as a direct consequence of Cedi appreciation during 2025. When the domestic currency strengthens, the Cedi equivalent value of Ghana’s foreign reserve assets, held in US dollars, euros, gold, and Special Drawing Rights, declines in mechanical proportion. This is a revaluation entry.
It does not represent a cash outflow. No dollars left the country. No gold was sold at below market prices.
The dollar-denominated value of Ghana’s external reserves actually increased during 2025. In presenting the accounting consequence of a stronger cedi as evidence of institutional failure, critics have effectively inverted the analytical logic.
The European Central Bank encountered a structurally identical phenomenon in 2025, recording €1.32 billion in write-downs arising from yen depreciation against the euro. The underlying mechanism is the same in both cases.
The GH₵9.05 billion figure reported as a net loss on gold dealings is arguably the most technically misread entry in the entire accounts. Ghana’s central bank statutory accounting framework, as prescribed by the Bank of Ghana Act, requires that unrealised gains arising from gold revaluation be routed through Other Comprehensive Income rather than recognised in the operating profit.
Global gold prices rose by approximately 65% during 2025, generating substantial gains on Ghana’s reserve holdings. Those gains represent a genuine increase in the market value of Ghana’s reserve holdings at the balance sheet date, even though they remain unrealised and are therefore appropriately excluded from the operating profit under both the statutory framework and the broader principle of accounting conservatism.
What does appear in the Operating Profit is the cost basis of gold purchased under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, which is treated as an expense in the period of acquisition.
Amid this complexity, one figure stands above the others in analytical relevance: policy solvency. In 2025, total operating income reached GH₵22.23 billion, against open market operation costs of GH₵16.73 billion, yielding a surplus of GH₵5.5 billion. In 2024, that same surplus stood at GH₵793 million.
The improvement across a single financial year is nearly sevenfold. That is the figure that most accurately reflects where the institution stands operationally.
Part IV: How Negative Equity Happened and Who Built It
The negative equity position now dominating public commentary did not emerge in 2025, nor did it originate with the current monetary authorities. Between 2017 and 2022, Ghana’s public debt rose from approximately 56% of GDP to 93.5%. The International Monetary Fund declared the debt stock unsustainable. The country lost access to international capital markets.
The Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) of 2023, which restructured approximately GH₵87 billion in domestic obligations by extending maturities and reducing effective yields, was the unavoidable fiscal consequence of that trajectory.
As a major holder of Government of Ghana securities, the Bank of Ghana absorbed a substantial write-down on its investment portfolio. That write-down is the origin of the negative equity position. It does not reflect monetary policy decisions. It reflects the accumulated consequences of fiscal arithmetic that ran well ahead of productive capacity for several consecutive years.
To attribute the current balance sheet position to the present Bank of Ghana management is analytically equivalent to attributing a patient’s pre-existing condition to the surgeon called upon to treat it. The intervention was always going to leave a mark. The relevant question is whether the patient is recovering. On that measure, the trajectory is unambiguous.
Public debt has declined from 61.8 percent of GDP at the start of 2025 to 45.3 percent by year end. Inflation has returned to single digits for the first time in three years. Real private sector credit growth recovered from negative territory in 2024 to 13.1 percent by December 2025 and reached 19.93 percent by March 2026.
The cedi has stabilised and appreciated in real effective terms. These outcomes are not incidental. They are the measurable dividends of the monetary policy that generated the very losses critics have chosen to highlight.
Part V: The Gold Strategy and the External Environment
No credible assessment of the Bank of Ghana’s 2025 position can proceed without examining what the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme has contributed. Ghana ranks among Africa’s largest gold producers by volume. For much of the country’s post-independence history, that gold left the country while the central bank’s reserve portfolio was held predominantly in US Treasury instruments. The DGPP was conceived to correct that structural misalignment.
Since its inception, Ghana’s gold reserve holdings have grown substantially, positioning the Bank to benefit directly from the approximately 65 percent rise in global gold prices recorded during 2025. Gold sales revenue of GH₵9.57 billion constituted the single largest line item of operating income in the 2025 accounts.
The People’s Bank of China and the Reserve Bank of India have attracted significant international recognition for comparable reserve diversification strategies pursued in recent years. The Bank of Ghana was executing the same strategic logic, under considerably more constrained conditions, before it became a fashionable policy posture among larger economies.
The external operating environment also warrants consideration. The commodity market dislocation that accompanied the Strait of Hormuz crisis in early 2026, characterised by extreme backwardation in gasoil futures, significant Brent crude premiums over the forward curve, and acute supply disruptions across petroleum-importing economies, illustrates the degree to which Ghana’s macroeconomic stability remains exposed to geopolitical developments beyond its control. In such an environment, the adequacy of foreign exchange reserves is not an abstract consideration. It is the practical difference between managed external pressure and a crisis. Ghana entered 2026 with reserves that had been substantially rebuilt through the gold programme. In 2022, the country’s import cover had fallen to approximately two months. The distance between those two positions is a direct measure of what the gold strategy has delivered.
Part VI: On the KPMG Emphasis of Matter and the Question of Statutory Accounting
In its independent audit opinion on the 2025 financial statements, KPMG included an Emphasis of Matter paragraph drawing attention to the basis of preparation. The paragraph merits careful reading in its entirety, not least because critics have selectively presented it as a disclosure of irregularity:
“We draw attention to Note 2a.i to the consolidated and separate financial statements, which describes the basis of accounting. The consolidated and separate financial statements are prepared in accordance with the group’s own accounting policies, to satisfy the financial information requirements per the Bank of Ghana Act, 2002 (Act 612) as amended by the Bank of Ghana (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Act 918), the Bank of Ghana (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act 1158), and the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) as amended by the Public Financial Management (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act 1136). As a result, the consolidated and separate financial statements may not be suitable for another purpose. Our opinion is not modified in respect of this matter.”
That final sentence is the one consistently omitted from critical commentary, and it is the most consequential sentence in the paragraph. An unmodified audit opinion means KPMG found no material misstatement, no departure from the applicable reporting framework, and no basis for qualification. The accounts are presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with the framework under which they were prepared.
To appreciate why this paragraph carries no exceptional significance, it is necessary to understand a foundational distinction in financial reporting that is rarely explained in public commentary on central bank accounts.
Financial reporting frameworks fall into two broad categories. A general purpose framework, of which International Financial Reporting Standards is the most widely recognised example, is designed to serve the information needs of a wide and undefined range of users simultaneously: shareholders, creditors, analysts, and the general public. It prioritises cross-entity comparability and is calibrated around the assumption that the reporting entity exists to generate commercial returns.
A special purpose framework, by contrast, is designed to meet the specific financial information requirements of a known and defined class of users, typically a legislature, a regulatory authority, or a statutory body. It is structured to satisfy a legal or regulatory reporting obligation rather than to serve the broadest possible audience. The accounts produced under a special purpose framework are, by their nature, not intended for general comparison or application beyond the purpose for which they were prepared.
This is precisely what KPMG communicated when it noted that the Bank of Ghana’s statements may not be suitable for another purpose. That phrase is not an expression of concern. It is the technically required language under International Standard on Auditing 800, which governs the audit of financial statements prepared under special purpose frameworks, and its inclusion is mandatory.
The more significant point, and the one most conspicuously absent from the critical commentary, is that the overwhelming majority of the world’s central banks do not report under a general purpose framework. They report under special purpose frameworks grounded in enabling legislation, statutory mandate, or bespoke accounting rules developed specifically for institutions whose primary function is the pursuit of monetary and financial stability rather than the generation of commercial returns. The United States Federal Reserve does not apply IFRS. Its financial statements are prepared in accordance with the Financial Accounting Manual for Federal Reserve Banks, a bespoke framework developed and maintained by the Board of Governors. The Fed’s own documentation acknowledges candidly that accounting principles for entities with the unique powers and responsibilities of the nation’s central bank have not been formulated by accounting standard setting bodies, and that the Board has therefore developed specialised principles it considers appropriate for the nature and function of a central bank. The deferred asset mechanism that allows the Fed to carry in excess of $240 billion in accumulated losses without reporting negative equity would not be permissible under IFRS. It exists because the applicable framework was designed for the institution, not borrowed from commercial banking practice.
The European Central Bank operates under the Eurosystem Accounting Framework, a harmonised regime established by Governing Council decision and grounded in statutory mandate. This framework deliberately departs from IFRS in several material respects. Most significantly, it treats unrealised gains and losses asymmetrically: unrealised losses are recognised immediately in the income statement, while unrealised gains are retained in revaluation reserves and do not constitute distributable profit. Under IFRS, both would pass through profit or loss symmetrically. The ECB has chosen the asymmetric treatment precisely because research by the ECB itself demonstrates that the Eurosystem accounting rules preserve materially higher financial buffers over time than IFRS application would produce. The ECB is also not subject to IFRS disclosure requirements. Its accounting policies are set by its own Governing Council, entirely independent of the International Accounting Standards Board.
The Bank of Japan reports under Japanese GAAP as modified by the Bank of Japan Act, with specific statutory provisions governing the treatment of gold revaluation and government bond holdings that differ from IFRS. The Reserve Bank of Australia applies IFRS as its base framework but with profit distribution rules that require the transfer of unrealised gains to reserves prior to distribution, a structural modification that the IMF has noted renders the practical economic difference between full IFRS and a statutory central bank framework largely presentational. The Reserve Bank of India prepares its accounts under the Reserve Bank of India Act and its own balance sheet regulations, with no obligation to comply with IFRS.
Within the African region, the pattern is consistent. The Central Bank of Nigeria prepares accounts under the CBN Act, with IFRS adopted as a supplementary reference, but statutory discretion is retained over gold and foreign currency revaluation treatment. The Bank of Uganda and the Bank of Tanzania both operate under enabling central bank legislation that takes explicit precedence over IFRS where conflicts arise, particularly in relation to reserve management, currency issuance liabilities, and the treatment of government securities.
The International Monetary Fund’s own technical guidance on central bank financial reporting acknowledges that the application of IFRS across central banks differs substantially based on each institution’s mandate, and that central banks are unique in their jurisdictions. Approximately one quarter of the world’s central banks apply IFRS in its complete form. The remainder report under statutory frameworks, national generally accepted accounting principles, or IFRS derived standards modified by enabling legislation. This is not a feature of developing economy practice. It is the dominant global norm.
The Bank of Ghana’s statutory framework, grounded in Act 612, Act 918, Act 1158, and Act 921, is therefore entirely consistent with international central banking practice. The departures from IFRS that the framework introduces are not arbitrary concessions to convenience.
They serve the same institutional purpose as the ECB’s asymmetric revaluation rules and the Federal Reserve’s deferred asset: they prevent the mechanical application of commercial accounting conventions from generating misleading signals about the financial condition of a policy institution.
In Ghana’s specific case, the most consequential departure from IFRS concerns the treatment of gold and foreign currency revaluation movements. Under the Bank of Ghana’s statutory framework, these movements are routed through Other Comprehensive Income rather than the income statement.
In 2025, those revaluation movements produced a loss of GH¢19.32 billion, driven by the appreciation of the cedi against the dollar and other reserve currencies. Because the statutory framework keeps such movements off the profit and loss account, the reported operating loss of GH¢15.63 billion reflects the Bank’s actual policy operations rather than the mechanical accounting consequences of exchange rate movements it cannot control. Had IFRS applied and those revaluation losses passed through the income statement, the reported loss would have been materially larger.
The statutory framework therefore produces a more operationally informative income statement, not a less rigorous one, by separating policy costs from valuation noise.
KPMG’s Emphasis of Matter paragraph, properly interpreted, is an act of disclosure rather than an expression of concern. It informs the reader that this institution is accountable to its statutory mandate, and that its accounts are structured accordingly. Critics who have chosen to present it otherwise have done so by quoting the first three sentences of the paragraph while omitting the fourth.
Conclusion
The critics examining the Bank of Ghana’s 2025 accounts are not incorrect about the numbers themselves. They are incorrect about what those numbers signify.
The European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Bank of England all recorded losses in 2025. In no case has the leadership of those institutions been required to answer accusations of institutional failure as a consequence. The losses have been correctly understood as the cost of restoring price stability, borne on the central bank balance sheet so that the burden need not fall directly on households and businesses through sustained inflation and currency depreciation. That is precisely the function the Bank of Ghana performed, in considerably more difficult circumstances, with substantially fewer institutional resources, and without the systemic credibility advantages available to issuers of reserve currencies.
The recapitalisation programme agreed with the Ministry of Finance, to be executed through 2032, provides a structured and credible pathway to the restoration of positive equity. The conditions necessary for that programme to succeed, including lower inflation, moderating policy interest rates, declining open market operation costs, and growing income from reserve assets, are actively materialising. Negative equity accumulated over several years will not be resolved within a single reporting cycle. The direction of travel is nonetheless clear, and the operational indicators confirm it.
As for those who have examined the KPMG Emphasis of Matter paragraph and concluded that it signals something irregular: it does not. It signals something routine. The Bank of Ghana reports under the legislation that governs it. So does the Federal Reserve. So does the European Central Bank. The difference is that no one in Washington or Frankfurt is being called upon to justify the arrangement.
The price of rescue and the cost of failure are not the same thing. On the evidence of 2025, the Bank of Ghana paid the former.
About the Writer: Gabriel Nomotsu Teye-Ali is General Manager of a leading energy company in Ghana and a finance, economics, and natural resource analyst with extensive expertise in Ghana’s petroleum sector. He holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada, and an MPhil from the University of Ghana Business School, where he also served as a part-time lecturer in Finance. He has written extensively on ESG, minerals, oil, and gas, providing critical analysis on energy policy and market regulation in Ghana and beyond.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and are offered solely as informed analytical commentary. They do not constitute professional accounting, financial, or investment advice, and should not be relied upon as such. The analysis draws on publicly available Bank of Ghana financial statements, applicable Ghanaian legislation, and international accounting standards and practices.
