The emergence of reports that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Board has been considering a sale-and-leaseback transaction involving its US$260 million headquarters complex in Accra – subsequently firmly denied by the central bank in an official statement – has opened a potentially explosive new chapter in one of Ghana’s most contentious economic debates.
Although the central bank has publicly denied earlier reports that it is considering, discussing or planning the sale of the facility, the mere suggestion earlier this week revived unresolved questions about the causes of the Bank’s deep financial losses, the controversial construction of the new headquarters itself, and how Ghana should recapitalise a central bank whose balance sheet was damaged largely by policy decisions taken in pursuit of national economic stability.
At the centre of the controversy lies an apparent contradiction.
The losses that wiped out the BoG’s capital base were never officially attributed to the construction of the headquarters. Yet the building’s ownership was now being linked—at least in public debate—to efforts to repair the institution’s finances.
That distinction could have proved politically significant.
The origins of the losses
The Bank of Ghana’s financial difficulties have been extensively documented.
In 2022, the central bank reported losses exceeding GHc60 billion, followed by further substantial losses in subsequent years. The largest component of those losses arose from Ghana’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), undertaken as part of the country’s economic recovery programme supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The BoG itself explained at the time that it had absorbed a 50% haircut on its non-marketable holdings of government debt instruments, resulting in impairment losses of more than GHc32 billion. Additional impairments on marketable government securities added more than GHc16 billion. Together, those losses accounted for the overwhelming majority of the deterioration in the central bank’s balance sheet.
“The Bank of Ghana was used to close the gap to enable Ghana meet the debt threshold that qualified Ghana for the IMF programme,” the central bank stated in 2023, describing itself as a “loss absorber” in the debt restructuring process.
The IMF subsequently defended the losses as a necessary consequence of restoring debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability.
Beyond the debt exchange, the central bank also incurred losses from exchange-rate movements, foreign reserve management and monetary operations aimed at maintaining financial stability and containing inflationary pressures.
These were policy-driven losses, not infrastructure-driven losses.
That reality is likely to form the basis of criticism should any future proposal emerge again to monetise the headquarters building.
A building that divided opinion
The Bank Square complex has been controversial almost from inception.
Construction began in 2019 and the facility was commissioned in November 2024 before becoming fully operational in September 2025. Costing more than US$260 million, it immediately became the focus of intense political and public scrutiny amid Ghana’s economic crisis and subsequent IMF programme.
Critics argued that such an expensive project was inappropriate during a period of severe fiscal distress.
The Bank, however, consistently defended the investment, maintaining that its previous headquarters had become inadequate for modern central banking operations and posed structural and operational challenges. The new complex was presented as a long-term institutional asset intended to serve the central bank for decades.
Ironically, the recent controversy generated by false rumours of a sale and lease-back of the building threatened to place supporters and opponents of the project in unfamiliar positions.
Those who criticised the building could now have found themselves opposing its disposal if they believed the asset was being unfairly sacrificed to remedy losses caused by national economic policy decisions.
Meanwhile, those who defended the project could have faced questions about whether monetising the asset undermined the original justification for its construction.
The sale-and-leaseback strategy
Actually, the attractiveness of a sale-and-leaseback arrangement is easy to understand from a financial perspective.
Such transactions enable an institution to unlock capital tied up in real estate while continuing to occupy and use the property through a long-term lease agreement.
For an institution facing negative equity, the immediate cash proceeds would strengthen the balance sheet without disrupting operations.
Yet central banks are not ordinary corporations.
Unlike commercial entities, central banks exist primarily to achieve public policy objectives rather than maximise shareholder value.
This raises a fundamental question: should a strategic national asset be sold to address losses that arose from implementing national economic policy?
Most economists would argue that the answer should be no.
Their reasoning is straightforward. If the losses stemmed from policy interventions undertaken in the national interest—including absorbing debt restructuring costs to help Ghana qualify for IMF support—then recapitalisation should come through the sovereign, not through the disposal of strategic operational assets.
Despite the storm in a tea cup brewed by false reporting that Bank Square was under consideration for a sale and lease back arrangement, the managers of both the central bank and government itself seem to agree.
Indeed, the government has already committed itself to recapitalising the central bank over time. Dr Cassiel Ato Forson Ghana’s Finance Minister recently confirmed that government intends to fully recapitalise the Bank of Ghana by 2032 through an agreed framework supported by legislative reforms.
An implicit admission?
Perhaps the most politically sensitive dimension of the brief but intense debate concerned what a sale-and-leaseback transaction would implicitly acknowledge.
Under such an arrangement, the Bank would sell the building but continue occupying it as a tenant.
In effect, such a transaction would have confirmed that the current Board and management consider the facility necessary for their operations despite earlier criticism from politicians, civil society groups and sections of the public.
The optics are striking.
A building once condemned by critics as extravagant would simultaneously be recognised as indispensable while being sold to repair a balance sheet damaged by policy choices unrelated to its construction.
For supporters of the headquarters project, this would have been interpreted as vindication. If the Bank intends to continue operating from the facility indefinitely, then the argument that it serves a legitimate operational purpose gains strength.
The wider picture
The Bank of Ghana has moved swiftly to reject reports that any sale is being contemplated, describing the claims as “false and misleading” and insisting that the headquarters remains a critical institutional asset.
That denial may close the immediate issue.
But the episode has highlighted a deeper unresolved question confronting central banks around the world after periods of extraordinary policy intervention: who ultimately bears the financial cost of safeguarding economic stability?
In Ghana’s case, the answer carries unusual symbolism.
The losses that damaged the Bank of Ghana’s capital position arose largely from efforts to rescue the broader economy and restore debt sustainability. Yet public attention is increasingly focused on a headquarters building that played no direct role in creating those losses.
Whether or not any sale-and-leaseback proposal ever existed, the controversy has exposed the complex political and economic tensions that arise when the costs of national stabilisation programmes eventually come due.
