Electroland Ghana Limited has announced a major price reduction on its goods following the continued appreciation of the cedi against major currencies.

This move, made in line with its “Cedi Apicki Apicki” promotion, comes shortly after a previous price reduction, which was also prompted by the cedi’s strengthening.

Addressing journalists at a press conference on Monday, June 9, the Head of Marketing & Media Relations at Electroland Ghana, Adiza Ibrahim, stated that customers across the country would benefit from a double price reduction on all products.

“We are entreating the general public across Ghana that this additional discount tech prices is for everybody,” she said

She further emphasised that the company has not authorised any third party to request or receive electronic payments, cautioning customers to beware of fraud.

“We have not entrusted any third party to take mobile money payment on behalf of Electroland before their items are supplied to them. I am entreating the general public to be cautious,” she emphasised.

Electroland Ghana Limited is a leading distributor of Midea, TCL, and Nasco electronics in Ghana.

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The Acting CEO of the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has revealed that indigenous Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) face possible extinction unless urgent financing support is provided.

Dr Randy Anerley Abbey disclosed that Cocobod has not secured a syndicated loan for the 2025/26 crop season, and that decision has triggered a financing crisis among local cocoa buyers.

“Something is happening with the LBCs, especially the indigenous ones, which has to do with the fact that we are not doing the syndicated loan. We are not doing 2025/26,” Dr. Abbey told George Wiafe on Joy News’ PM Express Business Edition.

He explained that the absence of the annual cocoa syndicated loan has created a liquidity vacuum, particularly for local companies that traditionally rely on Cocobod’s seed money to buy cocoa beans during the harvest season.

“Under the syndicated loan, Cocobod creates what he calls the seed money. And this seed money is what is given to the LBCs to go and purchase the bean,” he said.

“But 2024/25 low syndicated loans, so no seed fund.”

Dr. Abbey noted that while bypassing the syndicated loan might save Cocobod some financing costs, the decision has had devastating consequences for smaller players.https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y_afP9gzTtc?si=tzSkleGGmgQgOm-E

“Although it is saving Cocobod in terms of the financing cost…if we were to go for a syndicated loan, Cocobod will be looking at maybe GH¢3 billion or GH¢3.5 billion. And because of the nature of our finances, you even have banks asking for 8% to 10% on $1.”

The impact, he warned, is already being felt across the cocoa purchasing chain.

“Now the indigenous LBCs are unable to operate because there’s no seed money.”

In response to the looming crisis, Cocobod has engaged the Bank of Ghana for possible intervention using the Cash Reserve Ratio policy.

“One of the things we’ve done is to engage the central bank, and they asked for a follow-up letter. I’ve done that,” he disclosed.

“What I then told the central bank when we engaged them was that, look, you have the cash reserve ratio where all the banks put 25% of their deposits at the central bank. This is idle, not doing anything.”

He proposed that a small portion of these reserves could be directed to save the indigenous cocoa buyers.

“Can we look at apportioning 2% or 3% of this Cash Reserve Ratio just to support indigenous LBCs?” he asked.

“We can restrict it to cocoa purchases, just to ensure that they also don’t go using it for oil, tin tomatoes, and all those things.”

Dr. Abbey expressed hope that a positive response from the Bank of Ghana could provide lifeline support to the local cocoa buying firms, whose survival is now in question.

“We believe that if there’s a positive response, it will be able to help, especially the indigenous LBCs. Otherwise, if we continue with this financing model, I fear that most of them might go extinct.”

His comments follow Cocobod’s recent shift from syndicated loans to a 60-40 model with cocoa buyers for the 2025/26 season, a change he says compelled him to travel to Europe and North America to engage international buyers directly.

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Since its rollout in January 2023, the Bank of Ghana has disclosed that it incurred losses of GH¢317 million in 2023 and GH¢1.82 billion in 2024 under the Gold for Oil (G4O) programme.

That brings total losses to GH¢2.137 billion over two years. 

The central bank injected GH¢4.69 billion into the programme, effectively losing 45% of the capital it deployed in an effort to stabilise fuel prices and support the cedi.

On March 13, 2025, the Bank officially ended the Gold for Oil initiative, citing the heavy financial losses sustained as the primary reason for shutting it down.

Gold for Oil (G4O) was introduced in December 2022 in response to surging fuel prices, with diesel retailing as high as GH¢23 per litre and petrol around GH¢17 at GOIL stations in November 2022. 

A sharp cedi depreciation and the rapid depletion of foreign reserves forced the government and the Bank of Ghana to try an alternative strategy: use gold, not dollars, to purchase petroleum products from the international market.

The logic behind the programme was straightforward. Ghana needed a workaround to its dollar shortage that wouldn’t further drain the Bank of Ghana’s reserves or worsen currency depreciation.

The goal was to ease pressure on the cedi by preserving scarce foreign exchange reserves.

Ghana spends about $400 million each month importing fuel, making it a major driver of dollar demand.

Reducing that pressure, even partially, was central to the programme’s logic.

The Bank had already launched a domestic gold purchase programme in June 2021, partnering with the then Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), now rebranded as GoldBOD, to buy gold dore from local miners in cedis and refine it abroad for Ghana’s official reserves.

The aim at the time was to double Ghana’s gold reserves within five years, then standing at 8.74 tonnes.

That gold stockpile now exceeds 32 tonnes, nearly quadrupling in under four years, according to central bank data.

The domestic gold purchase programme was later expanded to include the Gold for Oil framework

The Bank, via PMMC, bought dore in cedis from miners, handed it to a “gold broker”, and had it sold internationally. 

The broker sold the gold for U.S. dollars and deposited the proceeds directly into the Bank’s offshore (nostro) accounts. These funds were used to purchase petroleum products.

The fuel was delivered to Ghana, but the dollars used to buy it remained overseas. As a result, the local economy saw no direct injection of foreign currency.

Notably, the entire arrangement was never subjected to parliamentary oversight. The ruling government argued at the time that the Gold for Oil programme was not an executive policy but a central bank initiative, and therefore did not require parliamentary approval.

The criteria for selecting these gold brokers, the fees paid, and the number of intermediaries involved have not been publicly disclosed.

The cedi did stabilise in the months after G4O’s launch, and fuel prices fell.

While it’s hard to isolate the programme’s direct impact from that of the IMF deal signed in May 2023, the reduced dollar demand from oil importers likely contributed to easing exchange rate pressure.

By November 2023 (nine months in) then-Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta told Parliament during the 2024 budget presentation that G4O accounted for around 30% of petroleum imports. 

No major updates followed until the release of the Bank’s 2024 financial report.

The Bank attributes most of the GH¢2.1 billion loss to foreign exchange losses.

But key details remain missing: the volume of gold acquired, the fuel supplied, the commissions paid, the intermediaries involved, and the broader impact of the programme.

With over GH₵2.1 billion in reported losses and little transparency about how it was run, Gold for Oil has ended as a costly intervention. 

It may have brought temporary foreign exchange relief and cheaper fuel, but it ultimately left a deep hole in the Bank of Ghana’s books.

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