National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has accused the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) of misrepresenting the financial position of the Bank of Ghana through what he described as “voodoo mathematics.”
Speaking during a discussion on TV3, the Goldbod CEO rejected claims by the NPP that the Bank of Ghana’s 2025 financial statements reflected huge losses, insisting that the opposition had wrongly interpreted the central bank’s audited accounts.
According to him, former Information Minister and Member of Parliament for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, erred by attempting to combine figures from the Bank’s profit and loss statement with items captured under Other Comprehensive Income (OCI).
“That is what is called voodoo mathematics. It is a sacrilege in accounting to add profit or loss from other comprehensive income statements to the real profit and loss statement. It is not done anywhere,” Mr. Gyamfi stated.
He explained that the profit and loss statement reflects the actual or realized profits and losses incurred by an institution, while figures captured under Other Comprehensive Income largely relate to unrealized gains or losses arising from revaluation adjustments and exchange differences.
“When you go to the other comprehensive income, you are talking about revaluation gains or losses or exchange differences that are unrealized. In other words, the bank has not actually incurred those losses or profits,” he argued.
Sammy Gyamfi further contended that international accounting standards do not permit the use of total comprehensive income to assess the true financial health of an institution.
Citing provisions of the Bank of Ghana Act, Act 612, he argued that Parliament had already provided clear guidelines on the treatment of revaluation gains and losses in the central bank’s financial reporting.
According to him, Section 7 of the Act specifically excludes gains or losses arising from the revaluation of assets, liabilities, foreign securities and exchange rate movements from the computation of the Bank’s annual profits or losses.
He therefore accused some NPP Members of Parliament, including Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, of ignoring provisions of a law they helped pass.
“To say the auditors should have added those figures is to suggest that KPMG should have violated the law passed by Parliament,” he said.
The Bank of Ghana’s financial position has recently become a subject of political debate, with the NPP raising concerns over reported losses in the central bank’s audited accounts, while the NDC insists the figures are being deliberately misrepresented for political purposes.
Source:www.kumasimail.com
