Ghana: Press spotlights 7.70 tonnes of gold added to nation’s reserves by BoG, others

APA – Accra (Ghana)
The addition of 7.70 tonnes of gold to the country’s reserves by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) as of the end of last month, according to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, is one of the leding stories in the Ghanaian press on Monday.
The Graphic reports that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has added 7.70 tonnes of gold to the country’s reserves as of the end of last month, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, has stated.
The measure, which is part of the central bank’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), is aimed at increasing gold as the asset cover in the country’s reserves to provide additional buffers to help the economy withstand future economic shocks.
Speaking on the impact and benefits of the DGPP at the 2023 Gold Expo in Takoradi last Saturday, Dr Addison said at the launch of the DGPP in June 2021, the objective was to double the central bank’s gold reserves which stood at 8.77 tonnes in five years.
Using the spot price of gold to be $63,000 per kg as of yesterday, the Daily Graphic estimates that the 7.70 tonnes of gold could be valued at more than $485 million.
This brings the total gold in the country’s reserves to 16.47 tonnes.
“I am happy to announce that since the inception of the DGPP programme in June 2021, the central bank has added more than 7.70 tonnes of monetary gold to the gold reserves as of June 30, 2023,” Dr Addison said.
On the sources of the gold in the reserve, the Governor said mining firms contributed about 80 per cent and the remaining 20 per cent was from the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector via an approved aggregator.
The newspaper says that the fight against corruption in Africa must be grounded on legislative, financial and institutional actions and not just on lip service, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said.
He indicated that corruption was not an exclusive African phenomenon but was spread across all nations of the world.
The President, however, explained that nations that had been successful in fighting the canker did so by building a robust legal system underpinned by the rule of law.
“They protected the public purse, made institutional reforms and enacted additional requisite laws and resource more adequately the accountability organs of state and in Ghana, that is the anti-corruption law that we are pursuing since I took office,” President Akufo-Addo stated.
He was speaking in Accra yesterday at the opening of the 70th World Convention of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI).
The event, which was held on the theme, “Empowered for Service”, brought together over 2,000 delegates from across the world to fellowship.
The three-day event is being hosted for the second time on the continent in its 70-year history, after Nigeria.
The Ghanaian Times reports that as part of efforts to bring the country on the path of debt sustainability, the government has announced a new Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) for dollar-denominated bonds involving the exchange of about US$ 809 million of the denominated notes and bonds.
The existing bonds should have matured between November 2023 and 2026 but are being replaced with new ones which would mature in the years 2027 and 2028, to give the government some financial reprieve.
A statement issued by the Ministry of Finance in Accra on Friday and copied to the Ghanaian Times said “The Government of the Republic of Ghana (the “Government” or “we”) announced today that it is inviting (the “Invitation”) Eligible Holders (as defined below) to exchange approximately US$809 million of its U.S.-denominated domestic notes and bonds specified in Table A (the “Eligible Bonds”) for a package of new bonds (as further described below, the “New Bonds”) to be issued by the Republic.”
The Finance Ministry explained that though the government had successfully exchanged about GH₵82 billion of the Cedi-denominated notes and bonds of the Republic through E.S.L.A Plc and Daakye Trust Plc for new bonds in February 2023 as part of efforts to reduce Ghana’s public debt and bring the country on the path of sustainability, the domestic exchange programme was not yet complete.
“Today, we are launching a similar invitation to exchange, this time in respect of the dollar-denominated bonds issued domestically by the Republic of Ghana and governed by Ghanaian law. For the avoidance of any doubt, this Invitation is separate from the invitation to exchange launched in December 2022 and concluded in February 2023, and does not involve any GHS-denominated securities,” it said.
The newspaper says that the World Bank has called for urgent reforms in the energy sector to save the sector from collapse.
It said there was the need for an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) to address the distribution and financial losses confronting the sector.
The Managing Director of the World Bank in charge of Operations, Anna Bjerde, who made the call at a news conference on Friday to round up her four-day visit to Ghana, in response to a question on reforms being proposed by the World Bank to revamp the country’s energy sector which is saddled with debt, acknowledged that the energy sector reforms would be difficult but was necessary to position the country for “strong growth”.
She said the financial performance of the energy sector for the past few years had deteriorated.
“The distribution and financial loss confronting the energy sector if not arrested and addressed with an EAP would continue to worsen and cost the country more to keep the energy sector running at the time when the government needs money to do other things,” she stated.
The government currently owed Independent Power Producers (IPPs) more than $1 billion and the IPPs recently threatened to shut down their plants if government did not pay debts owed them.
She said the World Bank was providing technical advice to the government on proper billing and metering to ensure the sector raised the necessary revenue to cover cost to ensure energy supply was not disrupted.
According to her, billing and collection was depended on proper metering, stressing that the country needed billing, metering and collection that “function well.”
“These are your basic parameters to be able to bill and collect properly,” Ms Bjerde stated, emphasising that “energy lost should be an energy that is consumed and paid for.”
Ms Bjerde said most of the cost in the energy sector was not on the front end of the distribution, but rather at the generation side and said the government needed to raise revenue to pay the IPPs to ensure constant power supply to spur economic growth.
She said disruptions in power supply would affect businesses and thereby thwart the economic growth of the country.
Ms Bjerde also advised on the structure and said regulatory issues is needed to fix the energy sector challenges and there would be the need to invite private sector participation in the country’s energy sector.
The Managing Director in charge of Operations said the World Bank was committed to support Ghana to help the country to address the economic challenges it was going through.
“The World Bank is a long standing part of Ghana and will stand by the country in this difficult period,” she stated.
GIK/APA