History will be kind to Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. Very kind. No matter how those who detest the truth, attempt to twist the facts.

When Ghana’s economy was on its knees in 2022 - cedi in free fall, inflation at 54%, our international capital market shut, fuel prices rising every week, most politicians were playing politics.

But Dr Bawumia was thinking: Deeply for Ghana.

At a meeting with members of the small-scale miners association in Accra on Thursday, what Dr. Bawumia revealed to them explain everything.

He told them the truth that was hidden from Ghanaians for three years: The IMF had handcuffed the Bank of Ghana. Under the programme, Ghana was not allowed to use more than $80 million a month to support the cedi. Just $80m - that is $960m for a whole year!

For a country that needs over $300m every single month just to import fuel, you don’t need to be an economist to know what happens next - excruciating dollar scarcity and a cedi that depreciate every day. The Bank of Ghana was watching, helpless.

Many countries would have collapsed. In fact, many would have run to black markets, rationed fuel and lined up for petrol like Sri Lanka. But Ghana did not collapse. Why? The answer is simeple: because one man refused to accept the orthodox dead-end.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia showed at that moment that he is Ghana’s most innovative economic thinker in a generation.

While others were shouting the cedi is depreciating, he was asking the questions that mattered: How do we survive without dollars? How do we build reserves when nobody will lend us dollars? How do we turn our own wealth into strength?

His answers were pure genius, and unheard of anywhere in the world:

1. Gold-for-Oil: If we don’t have dollars to buy fuel, let’s exchange our gold for oil directly. No dollars, no depreciation. The pumps kept running. A nation of 33 million did not grind to a halt.

2. Gold-for-Reserves: And this is the one that will be taught in universities. On a morning jog, he asked: Why should Ghana, the number one gold producer in Africa, have only 8.7 tons of gold reserves?
Why must we farm cocoa, export it for dollars, and then use those dollars as reserves, when we can simply buy the gold ?

The Bank of Ghana itself was skeptical. Dr. Bawumia confessed they needed almost a year of studies because they feared IMF punishment for doing something no textbook prescribes.

But he persuaded them and they listened.

Result? In just two years, Ghana bought $5 billion worth of gold with cedis, grew our reserves from a paltry 8.7 tons to over 31 tons, and became the toast of central banks across Africa.

And here is the victory lap: Because Bawumia’s gold built the reserves the IMF was demanding, the IMF itself removed the $80m cap in January 2025.

From $80 million a month - where we couldn’t even do $1 billion a year Ghana now has the muscle to inject $1 billion a a montb.

That cedi you see stable today was bought with Bawumia’s gold.

This is what leadership looks like. It is not about slogans. It is not about insults on campaign platforms. It is about deep thinking when a nation is drowning.

When the tap of Eurobonds was shut, when the IMF said “don’t touch your dollars,” Bawumia did not throw his hands up. He found a new tap our own gold.

He saved Ghana from the abyss, not with borrowed money, but with Ghanaian gold. For Ghana. By Ghana.

That is statesmanship. That is vision. That is why, even out of office, the solutions keeping this economy alive still bear his fingerprints.

Dr Bawumia thought deep and Ghana survived.