Latest update April 18th, 2025 8:12 AM
Gold Board slams Jagdeo for claiming entity has $17.5B debt
The Guyana Gold Board has refuted statements by Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, that it has accumulated debts of $17.5B.
The statements were reportedly made by the former President during the 2017 budget 
debate yesterday in the National Assembly.
“The Guyana Gold Board wishes to note that at the end of 2013 the organisation recorded a loss of $9.9 billion with another $400 million added in 2014,” the state-owned entity indicated in a statement.
“These early losses contributed to the entity’s 2015 overdraft being $12.9 billion. As at November 2016, its overdraft was $14.9 billion.”
Gold Board insisted that its overdraft never amounted to $17.5 billion as was contended by Jagdeo.
“The Guyana Gold Board wishes to note that at current prices the value of its stock in hand is $14.3B. The management and Board of Directors of the Guyana Gold Board have been reviewing methods and ways of turning the Board’s fortunes around.”
The statement said that it has observed that there were significant market policy distortions that have created the losses which the organisation faced.
“Specifically, the Guyana Gold Board buys gold at a selling price and then must in turn sell that gold at the selling price. The Board of Directors has noted that this purchasing method can never be feasible, especially in a declining price market.”
Coupled with this issue, Gold Board stressed that it is known that the organisation was holding significant amounts of gold in the 2012-2013 periods when prices were falling.
“…hence it was not able to recoup its basic purchase cost. All of these real and incorrect policy positions have contributed to the deficit. To remedy this, the Board of Directors has agreed on a number of policy changes that once implemented would allow the entity to recover its costs.” Gold Board noted that it has contributed to the revenues of the country, bringing in US$114.8M in 2015 and US$218.9M in 2016.
The Gold Board said it is disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition would be aware of these facts and misconstrue them for cheap political mileage.
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