Somewhere between November and December 2025, the Bank of Ghana decided to sell roughly half of its gold reserves.
At the last reporting before the sale in October 2025, the bank’s gold holdings stood at 38.04 tonnes. The next reporting in December 2025 showed that holdings had dropped to 18.6 tonnes.
That represents a massive 51% decline in the central bank’s gold holdings.
The Bank had begun actively growing its gold reserves in May 2023 after launching the Gold for Reserves programme.
The policy followed the country’s 2022 economic crisis, when Ghana faced a severe shortage of foreign exchange that significantly weakened the Ghanaian cedi and triggered spiraling inflation.
The rationale behind the programme was straightforward. By building gold reserves, the country would have an additional buffer that could be used to support the currency and the broader economy in the event of another crisis.
In May 2023, Ghana held just over 8 tonnes of gold.
By 2025, that figure had grown steadily to more than 38 tonnes.
However, the rapid accumulation of gold also created a vulnerability for the central bank.
Gold forms part of Ghana’s international reserves. At the time, the more than 38 tonnes held by the Bank translated to roughly $3.5 billion in value.
Ghana’s gross international reserves stood at $11.4 billion while net international reserves, which exclude some encumbered assets and provide a slightly more accurate picture of the country’s liquidity position, stood at $9.3 billion.
This meant physical gold accounted for about 30% of gross international reserves and roughly 37% of net international reserves.
International reserves serve two critical functions.
First, they signal that the country has enough foreign exchange to keep the economy functioning, particularly to pay for imports in the event of a crisis that disrupts foreign currency inflows. Ghana experienced this during the 2022 crisis when the country was effectively locked out of the international capital markets.
Second, international reserves reassure foreign investors and holders of Ghana’s external debt that the country has sufficient liquidity to meet its foreign currency obligations when debt repayments fall due.
When more than a third of reserves are held in physical gold, the central bank’s ability to immediately intervene in the foreign exchange market becomes more complicated.
Physical gold must first be sold and converted into dollars before it can be deployed.
This introduces delays during periods when quick intervention may be necessary.
It also exposes the value of the country’s reserves to fluctuations in global gold prices.
Gold prices rose sharply for much of 2025.
However, a significant price drop, such as the decline seen in January 2026, could have quickly reduced the value of Ghana’s international reserves.
These risks were discussed on Beyond the Numbers, the analytical programme produced by JoyNews Research, in early November 2025.
The Bank of Ghana responded in December 2025, acknowledging the concentration risk.
“The Bank remains mindful of the increased concentration of gold within the total reserve portfolio, which stood at over 42% as of end-October 2025,” the central bank said.
“Accordingly, steps are being taken to rebalance the portfolio by reducing the Bank’s allocation to gold in line with its strategic asset allocation framework. Proceeds from this divestment will be reinvested into a diversified mix of income-generating assets to enhance portfolio resilience and optimise returns.”
This was the first clear indication that the Bank intended to reduce its gold holdings and convert part of them into cash reserves.
The sale eventually took place in December 2025 and was publicly disclosed at the end of January 2026.
According to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Asiama, the central bank realised a profit of about $1.3 billion from the sale of roughly 19 tonnes of gold.
The profit was largely due to the difference between the price at which the gold had been purchased and the much higher market price at which it was sold, as gold prices surged throughout 2025.
However, the Bank did not completely exit the market.
Between January and February 2026, it purchased an additional 0.6 tonnes of gold, albeit at a higher cost.
Shortly after the sale, the government introduced a policy that slightly complicates the picture.
The Ghana Accelerated National Reserves Accumulation Policy (GANRAP) was announced by the Finance Ministry with the aim of building Ghana’s reserves to 15 months of import cover by 2028.
Under the policy, Ghana plans to purchase roughly 3 tonnes of gold each week.
The Bank of Ghana is expected to acquire about 0.57 tonnes weekly from large-scale mines, while the Ghana Gold Board purchases about 2.45 tonnes from small-scale miners.
The policy also requires Cabinet and Parliamentary approval before gold sales can be undertaken, potentially limiting the Bank’s flexibility in managing reserves.
As Governor Asiama explained,
“Initiatives of this scale raise questions regarding liquidity conditions, the Bank’s balance sheet, and the interaction between reserve accumulation and monetary policy operations.”
The Bank has since indicated that it retains some flexibility.
“While disposal of accumulated gold will be executed on a need-basis, the Bank also has structured financing options that can generate liquidity with the bullion without approval from Cabinet and Parliament for an outright sale of bullion should the need arise,” the Bank of Ghana said.
Such flexibility is important.
The central bank must be able to generate foreign exchange quickly in situations where gold prices are falling sharply or expected to fall, or when liquidity is required for external debt repayments or energy sector obligations.
The sale of more than 19 tonnes of gold surprised many observers.
Yet from a portfolio management perspective, the move was largely aimed at rebalancing Ghana’s reserves and reducing exposure to gold price volatility.
The subsequent launch of GANRAP, which pressures the Bank to accumulate gold rapidly, appears somewhat inconsistent with that strategy.
The central bank has stated that it intends to maintain gold holdings at around 20% to 30% of total reserves.
While the additional requirement for Cabinet and parliamentary approval could constrain flexibility, the Bank appears to have found ways to retain some operational room.
The Bank says it will still undertake rebalancing measures to bring the reserve portfolio back within acceptable risk parameters whenever gold holdings exceed a set limit.
For this framework to work effectively, however, foreign exchange inflows generated by the GoldBod through the export of gold purchased from small-scale miners and the other sources of foreign currency must roughly match the pace of the Bank of Ghana’s gold purchases from large-scale mining companies.
If those inflows fail to keep pace, gold could once again become an outsized share of Ghana’s reserves.
Maintaining that balance will ultimately determine whether the country can continue accumulating gold without recreating the very concentration risks that prompted the central bank to sell half of its holdings in the first place.
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Source:
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