Franklin Cudjoe, the founder and President of Policy Think Tank, IMANI Africa, has argued that Ghanaians’ rejection of the Agyapa royalties deal saved the country the multibillion-dollar revenues the current GoldBod has given the NDC government.
The IMANI President took a swipe at Akufo-Addo’s family, highlighting that they would have stashed Ghana’s gold offshore in the Cayman Islands, where they would have been laughing at Ghanaians.
In a post on X, Franklin Cudjoe wrote, “I just realised if we had allowed AGYAPA to pass, all the multibillion-dollar GoldBod has given us under the current government would have been stashed offshore in the Cayman Islands, where the former finance minister and his extended family and friends and descendants would have been laughing at us. Kokloviwo”
It will be recalled that Ken Ofori-Atta, the former Minister for Finance, at a press briefing in 2020, claimed the Agyapa Mineral Royalty Limited arrangement was the best deal for Ghana’s gold.
However, then President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ordered the suspension of the Agyapa deal following a public outcry in 2021.
It has now emerged that the government spent $12 million on the suspended Agyapa royalties deal.
In 2024, the CEO of the Minerals Income Investment Fund, Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng, disclosed this at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sitting.
According to him, the 12 million dollars was expended on the processes to issue the initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange before it was suspended.
Mr Koranteng said, “My understanding, honourable chair, is that the Ministry of Finance procured the services of international consultancy and companies and financial institutions that have done this in the past and that the advice provided was what the Ministry of Finance stood on.”
“We started with the Ministry of Finance, and from the documents that we have, it is clear that the correct advice was provided on the set-up of a gold royalties company where the streaming of the royalties would benefit Ghana.”
Meanwhile, some Ghanaians reacting to Franklin Cudjoe’s post stated, “They didn’t just SCAMMED GHANA, they breed young guys into scammers too.
The records are there.
Goro boys can insult and defend them; we’re careless.
Thanks to God, Ghana is working again. Reset papa paaaaa
FORGET THESE ATTACKS. Witches don’t like good things, know that”.
A netizen added, “I laugh at this kokloviwo oo! Your GoldBod scrambled when Dubai flights were grounded. Iran’s war stranded our gold overnight. Both get issues!”
One X user added, “A once respected man paaa turned into an idiot….lmao the NDC created that Agyapa nonsense, they have been in power for over a year…..why haven’t they prosecuted anyone or mentioned it anywhere again? Shouldn’t that be your worry as a CSO?”.
A netizen added, “You spoke well and the truth. The low IQ NPP party footsoldiers who feed on 30 cedis per week will come and insult you”.
“And the stipend you’ve been getting from the government would have been your pipe dream. This moronic, idiotic grandstanding must stop. Posterity will not judge you right. How much rent are you getting for this propaganda, Mr Dullard? @lordcudjoe”, an X user added.
A netizen added, “True ooo, the same with Gold for Oil, yet we didn’t see any better rate at the pumps, people were playing middlemen and chopping our money. At least the NDC is making all of us enjoy the Gold”.
“The Agyapa deal was craftily designed to enable the SPECIAL ONES from Kyebi to feed on Ghana eternally. It was a covenant-like deal which would have forced our hands to pay them huge dividends from Ghana’s prosperity. This is the danger involved in drinking Kalypo with the NPP”, one netizen added.
One last Ghanaian with a long comment added, “ Franklin, this is bad history and worse economics.
These are three completely different things.
Agyapa was a Jersey-based offshore SPV designed to monetise future royalties from large-scale industrial gold mines. It had nothing to do with small-scale mining and nothing to do with building Bank of Ghana reserves.
DGPP was the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, launched in June 2021 under Bawumia to build reserves by purchasing gold for the central bank. That was a reserve strategy, not a trading monopoly.
GoldBod is a 2025 statutory institution with monopoly powers over small-scale gold trading and exports, backed by legal enforcement powers the Bank of Ghana never had.
So no, GoldBod did not fall from heaven under the NDC. And no, every dollar GoldBod is generating today would not have been sitting in offshore secrecy under Agyapa, because Agyapa and GoldBod were aimed at completely different parts of the gold value chain.
The honest story, inconvenient as it may be for both sides, is this: the NPP conceived and piloted the modern gold reserve strategy under difficult conditions. The NDC then took that foundation, gave it statutory force, and scaled it into a more powerful gold trading institution.
That is not propaganda. That is simply what happened”.
See the post below:
I just realised if we had allowed AGYAPA to pass, all the multibillion Dollars GoldBod has given us under the current government would have been stashed offshore in the Cayman Islands, where the former finance minister and his extended family and friends and descendants would…
— Franklin CUDJOE (@lordcudjoe) April 20, 2026