Ghanaian government allocates approximately $429 million to purchase gold, central bank's "quasi-fiscal functions" to be brought back into the budget

According to a Bloomberg report on July 28, Ghana has allocated 50 billion cedis (approximately $429 million) to the Ghana Gold Board in its revised 2026 budget. This funding is intended for purchasing gold from small-scale miners to increase foreign exchange reserves. The project, previously pre-financed by the Bank of Ghana, was shifted to fiscal responsibility after the IMF questioned its "quasi-fiscal" nature. With the Ghana Gold Board monopolizing the export of gold from small mines, Ghana's gold export value has increased from $10.3 billion in 2024 to $21 billion in 2025. This has also enabled the government to purchase gold with local currency and sell it internationally for foreign exchange, leading to a rise in foreign reserves to $14.5 billion in February of this year and a roughly 41% appreciation of the cedi in 2025. Inflation has fallen from 23.8% at the end of 2024 to 5.3% in June of this year. To hedge against budget risks, the government has also reduced capital expenditure from 57.5 billion cedis to 52.5 billion cedis.