Bank of Ghana’s losses to clear within three years – Prof Quartey 

Professor Peter Quartey, a Development Economist, has expressed confidence about the Bank of Ghana (BoG) curtailing its losses in the next three years, projecting an improved financial outlook by the end of 2026. 

Prof Quartey, who is now the Acting Director of the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), said though the bank’s loss was a concern, the actions it took to achieve price stability and support economic growth was necessary. 

“The discussion of the losses as against the mandate of the bank, which is to ensure price stability and enhance economic growth. The bank is not a loss-making entity and was not set up to make profit. Having said that, it must minimise the loss,” he said. 

“In the next three years, I expect that they should be showing surplus. In the 2026 financial statement, I expect a lower loss and in the subsequent years, it should reduce, and within three years I don’t expect to see losses on the books of the central bank.” 

Prof Quartey said this in an exclusive interview with the Ghana News Agency, on Tuesday, noting that breaking-even or recording a surplus by the central bank required implementing a combination of structural economic changes and operational shifts. 

Among them were shifting the financial burden of gold purchases to the government, increasing national exports through value addition to generate more foreign exchange, and promoting digital finance. 

Others were minimising losses from gold purchases by improving the Gold Board’s efficiency to reduce smuggling, which would eliminate the need for the central bank to pay high premiums to small-scale miners to attract gold. 

Prof Quartey also encouraged sustained macro-stability to lower the high frequency of open market operations as well as allowing the central bank to operate as an independent, de-politicised.  

He expressed optimism that the pressure of open market operations would ease considerably as the extent of macroeconomic stability would translate into reduced frequency and cost of the Bank of Ghana’s liquidity absorption exercises. 

On the issue of gold purchases, he said the Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation Programme (GANRAP) has shown the government’s commitment towards accumulating reserves equivalent to 15 months of import cover. 

He noted that under the GANRAP arrangement, the Minister of Finance would finance the gold purchase budget directly, meaning the revaluation losses previously borne by the central bank would no longer accrue to it. 

Prof. Fred Dzanku, Associate Professor of Development Economics, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), in an analysis of the central bank’s 2025 financials, said the costs were the financial footprint of policy intervention. 

Prof Dzanku noted that evidence showed that the action of the central bank reflected its stability mandate, delivering macroeconomic benefits, insisting that though Bank of Ghana was not a profit maximisation entity, it ought to control its losses. 

“Empirically, a 10 per cent depreciation raises inflation by roughly 2.6 percentage points in Ghana. This implies that even modest stabilisation – say reducing depreciation pressures by three to eight percentage points – could avoid inflationary pressures equivalent to roughly GHS11–29 billion at current GDP levels,” he stated. 

“In that sense, the losses and the potential inflation avoided are in the same broad range. Stability is costly – but unchecked inflation would also impose significant economic and welfare costs,” Prof Dzanku said. 

Source: GNA 

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