A former Managing Director of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), Nana Akwasi Awuah Esq., has pushed back strongly against claims that the
A former Managing Director of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), Nana Akwasi Awuah Esq., has pushed back strongly against claims that the state-owned firm incurred losses under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme during his tenure, while warning that the newly created Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) must avoid repeating past mistakes that once plunged PMMC into deep financial distress.
In a detailed public statement, Nana Awuah, who led PMMC from 2021 to 2024, said recent attempts to associate PMMC with losses under the Gold-for-Reserves (G4R) programme were factually inaccurate and unsupported by evidence.
According to him, no proof has been provided to show that PMMC recorded losses in 2022, 2023 or 2024 as a result of its role in domestic gold purchases.
He stressed that throughout his tenure, PMMC did not incur any losses linked to the Gold-for-Reserves programme, directly contradicting narratives circulating in the wake of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report that has since ignited public debate.
Nana Awuah clarified that the IMF’s reported $214 million “trading loss” relates specifically to developments in 2025, after the creation of GoldBod, and not to the period when PMMC was responsible for domestic gold trading operations.
The IMF, in its assessment, noted that the expanding scale of the Gold-for-Reserves programme—particularly following the establishment of GoldBod—posed significant downside risks, citing the reported $214 million trading loss in 2025.
Nana Awuah argued that conflating this development with PMMC’s past operations amounts to a distortion of the facts.
Providing historical context, the former PMMC boss recalled that when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) assumed office in 2017, PMMC was already in severe financial trouble due to legacy gold trading activities between 2012 and 2016.
At the time, the company was burdened with a dollar-denominated debt of about $5 million and a cedi liability of roughly GH¢30 million, which ballooned to GH¢81 million by 2024 due to accumulated interest.
Staff salaries were in arrears, statutory obligations were unpaid, and the company’s headquarters—Diamond House—had been attached by a judgment creditor and listed for auction.
He said the turnaround achieved under his leadership was the result of deliberate restructuring, disciplined financial management and innovative solutions.
By the time management handed over in 2025, PMMC had fully settled the dollar component of the inherited debt, while the cedi portion had been ringfenced under a formal settlement agreement, with funds earmarked for its complete liquidation.
According to Nana Awuah, PMMC’s financial recovery peaked in 2024, when the company’s net profit surged from GH¢10.8 million in 2023 to GH¢178 million in 2024—an increase of over 1,500 per cent.
These figures, he noted, are backed by audited accounts and captured in the State Ownership Report for 2024, making it inaccurate to suggest that PMMC recorded losses in its final year of operation.
Against this backdrop, he cautioned that as the Bank of Ghana reportedly exits the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme and GoldBod assumes full-scale gold trading responsibilities, lessons from PMMC’s troubled past must not be ignored.
He warned that weak controls, poor trading decisions and lack of prudence could expose the state to avoidable losses similar to the $214 million trading deficit now dominating public discourse.
Meanwhile, GoldBod itself has sought to distance the new institution from PMMC, dismissing claims that it is merely a rebranded version of the former company.
In a separate clarification issued on January 5, 2026, the Ghana Gold Board described such assertions as misleading, stressing that its establishment represents a fundamental institutional overhaul anchored in law.
GoldBod cited the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140), passed by Parliament in March and assented to in April 2025, as the legal basis for its mandate.
The board explained that unlike PMMC—which operated as a company limited by shares with a profit motive and no regulatory authority—GoldBod is a strategic public corporation with exclusive rights over artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) gold purchases, a mandate to generate foreign exchange, and a role in building the gold reserves.
The board further noted that it possesses enforcement and regulatory powers PMMC never had, including the operation of a standing task force to combat gold smuggling and illegal trading, as well as the authority to exercise government pre-emption rights over gold from large-scale mining companies.
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