Extortion Claim Against Afenyo Is False -Mama Pat

Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament, Patricia Appiagyei, has rejected allegations of extortion and other wrongdoing levelled against Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, describing the claims as false.

According to Madam Appiagyei, the allegations form part of a broader attempt to distract attention from questions raised by the Minority Caucus over the financial position of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) and the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme.

In a statement issued on August 22, 2026, the Deputy Minority Leader said the losses associated with the programme were not invented by the Minority but had been identified in an official report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“The allegations are false, and we reject them entirely,” she said, referring to the personal allegations directed at members of the Minority, including Mr Afenyo-Markin.

She said the Minority was seeking a full and transparent reconciliation of GoldBod’s audited financial statements with the losses identified in the IMF report.

Madam Appiagyei stressed that questioning the management of a public institution and public assets constituted a legitimate parliamentary oversight responsibility and should not be portrayed as wrongdoing.

The statement followed a series of public comments by GoldBod Chief Executive Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, between August 17 and 22, 2026, in response to questions raised by the Minority about GoldBod’s financial position and the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, which GoldBod administers.

Madam Appiagyei said Mr Gyamfi had, on several occasions, directed personal characterisations at members of the Minority, including the Minority Leader.

The Minority, she said, would not respond to the comments in kind, but would instead pursue the appropriate institutional channels.

“We state plainly and without qualification that the allegations are false, and we reject them entirely,” she said.

She further called on public officials to uphold standards of civility, restraint and respect, citing Ghana’s Code of Conduct and Ethics for political appointees.

“We expect every public official, including the Chief Executive Officer of GoldBod, to be held to those standards,” she said.

The Deputy Minority Leader said the Minority remained committed to raising questions about the management of public assets in a factual and measured manner.

She, therefore, called on GoldBod to appear before a Parliamentary Inquiry to account fully for the losses identified in the IMF report and reconcile them with its own audited financial statements.

The Minority Leader, Mr Afenyo-Markin, has similarly maintained that allegations against him are false and intended to divert attention from his questions about the reported losses under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme.

In a separate statement, Mr Afenyo-Markin said his actions had been guided by his constitutional responsibility as Minority Leader to assist Parliament in exercising its oversight functions.

He said he would continue working with the Minority Caucus to initiate the necessary parliamentary processes for a full inquiry into the reported GH¢22 billion loss, arising from trading undertaken by GoldBod and reflected in the books of the Bank of Ghana.

Mr Afenyo-Markin also cited an IMF-reported loss of approximately US$1.7 billion under the programme in 2025 and argued that, regardless of which institution’s balance sheet carried the figure, it represented public money.

He said Ghanaians were entitled to know who the off-takers were, what discounts were applied to their purchases, who authorised the discounts and what fees were earned from the transactions.

He also called for a full breakdown of the reported US$1.7 billion loss, including how much arose from foreign-exchange differentials, gold buying and selling prices and management decisions behind the transactions.

Mr Afenyo-Markin said the Minority would continue placing its questions and sources in the public domain so that Ghanaians could examine the evidence and form their own conclusions.

Madam Appiagyei said the Minority would continue updating the public as the matter progresses, stressing that the issues should ultimately be settled by facts tested through parliamentary scrutiny rather than accusations from either side.

The Minority’s call for a parliamentary inquiry therefore places renewed focus on GoldBod’s financial statements and the reported losses under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, with the Caucus insisting that the matter should be resolved through formal parliamentary examination.

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