Why I proposed Gold-for-Oil and Domestic Gold Purchase Programme – Bawumia discloses
The New Patriotic Party’s 2028 flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has explained in detail what drove him to introduce the Gold-for-Oil and Domestic Gold Purchase programmes.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the New Patriotic Party's 2028 flagbearer, has disclosed the rationale behind proposing the Gold-for-Oil and Domestic Gold Purchase programmes. Speaking to the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners in Accra, the former Vice President revealed that two interconnected issues motivated his decision to think outside the box.
The first challenge was the abrupt end of external financing due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war's impact on the global economy, leading to a balance of payments crisis. The second issue was the constraints imposed by Ghana's IMF programme, which limited the Bank of Ghana's ability to intervene in the foreign exchange market to $80 million per month.
This shortage caused the cedi to depreciate daily as demand exceeded supply. To circumvent the dollar constraint, Bawumia proposed the Gold-for-Oil programme, which aimed to pay for fuel using gold. Meanwhile, the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme came to him while exercising, prompting him to question why Ghana had to export cocoa and other commodities to generate dollars for foreign exchange reserves when the country mines gold daily.
He described the Gold-for-Reserves programme as "out-of-the-box thinking" and emphasized that it was the first of its kind in Africa and potentially the world.
Written by urgent.news from MyJoyOnline Ghana's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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