Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of U.S. dollars

On Thursday, Ghana's Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia posted on Facebook that the Ghanaian government is considering a new policy of exchanging gold, not U.S. dollar reserves, for oil products.

Currently, the country is facing problems of high demand for dollars from oil importers and the need to reduce foreign exchange reserves. This increases the cost of living and weakens the local currency cedi. The proposed payment system would help solve these problems.

Bawumia said that the realization was planned for the first quarter of 2023. In case of success, the new policy would significantly reduce the constant depreciation of Ghana's currency and fundamentally change the country's balance of payments.

He explained this step by the fact that foreign currency will no longer be needed for domestic sellers to import oil products. Fuel or utility prices would be taken out of the direct influence of the exchange rate through the use of gold.

He added that buying oil for gold is a serious structural change.