Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s Gold for Oil program has allegedly suffered a staggering $90 million loss.
According to reports from the Ghana Chronicles, the situation escalated when a licensed company tasked with purchasing gold for the initiative allegedly vanished with the funds.
They further indicated that the revelations reportedly emerged during transition meetings as the Mahama administration assumed office.
It has also emerged that the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) and its management led by its Managing Director, Dr Edwin Alfred Nii Obodai Provencal, are also reportedly implicated in the Gold for Oil programme’s mismanagement and financial losses.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) meanwhile announced that it will progressively phase out the Gold for Oil policy, implemented in February 2023 to alleviate fuel prices.
The Central Bank indicated that the program has achieved its purpose and is no longer necessary.
BoG stated, “The Gold for Oil policy was a crisis management policy. We came in at the time in 2022 when the currency was depreciating very sharply and then prices at the pump became unbearable.
“So as things normalise the rationale for these interventions may not be as strong as they were when we were in the middle of the crisis. So this is why we may have to get out of that operation”, BoG revealed.
Meanwhile, the former vice president Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said the success of the Gold-for-Oil programme cannot be ignored.
Dr Bawumia argued that without the policy, Ghana’s economy would have collapsed.
Dr. Bawumia in a media encounter on Sunday, August 25, 2024, held in Accra, stated boldly, “Without the gold purchase program and the gold-for-oil programme, this economy would have collapsed”.
