Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has said the Gold-for-Oil and Domestic Gold Purchase programmes were not ideas from any economics textbook.
He says they were out-of-the-box solutions he initiated to support the cedi and ensure fuel availability when Ghana faced foreign exchange constraints.
According to him, the Bank of Ghana took almost a year to conduct due diligence on the proposal because officials feared they would get into trouble for implementing something unorthodox.
Speaking in Accra to members of the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners on Friday, August 28, 2026, Dr Bawumia said the unconventional approach made Ghana the first country in Africa, and probably the world, to implement such a programme.
“It was not a textbook idea. There’s no textbook in economics that will tell you about the Gold-for-Reserves programme,” he said.
He noted that the two interlinked problems forced him, while serving as Vice President, to think outside the box for sustainable solutions.
He revealed that the first problem was the sudden halt in external financing following the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. “That tap [external financing] was shut for Ghana and quite a few countries. And for us, it resulted in a balance of payments crisis,” he said.
The second problem, he added, was the condition under Ghana’s External Credit Facility (ECF) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which limited the Bank of Ghana to using only $80 million a month to intervene in the foreign exchange market.
“You can imagine what the demand for foreign exchange for Ghana would be on a monthly basis. Significantly more than $80 million a month. And so, in that framework, there was only one result. When demand exceeds supply, prices would go up. The cedi started depreciating daily,” he said.
Dr Bawumia said the Gold-for-Oil programme was to bypass the dollar constraint by using gold to pay for fuel, to avoid a fuel shortage in the country.
He said the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme came to him while he was exercising. “Why does Ghana, which mines gold every day, have to export cocoa to get dollars for its forex reserves? Why not buy the gold we already produce with cedis?” he asked.
He noted that after the Bank of Ghana finally agreed to implement it, other countries are now coming to learn from Ghana.
“Finally, they agreed, and Ghana became the first country in Africa, and probably the world, to implement such a programme. Now other countries are coming to learn from Ghana,” he added.
Bawumia reveals what inspired Gold-for-Oil, Domestic Gold Purchase programmes
