Bright Simons

For a few years now, a group of us have tried to explain that the biggest challenge in African democracies like Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya is not really the POLITICS. The real mess is in POLICY. We call this KATANOMICS. But we have done most of our explaining using essays. Everyone tells us, however, that reading nowadays is hard! People are too swamped and busy. So, we are trying our hands at using videos and photos. 😊 First video: youtu.be/cj9pUzTr2vQ We are new to this so forgive the quality and focus on the message. But we are very welcome to all feedback. Keep them coming.

@NanaQuequ That is what the essay is about. 😊

@BBSimons How do we keep the impressive exchange rates and inflation gains plus the spectacular reserves growth without the ugly losses at BOG,….. ?

1. I promised to do an essay with a bit more meat than my earlier post on Bank of Ghana’s recent bombshell. Here goes. Since it was rushed, if you see a typo or data glitch, please forgive. 2. For those totally clued out, this is about Ghana’s central bank doing some accounting magic to blunt the force of alarmingly large losses arising from its otherwise impressive exchange rate and inflation gains of the last year. 3. In 2025, reserves climbed to about $13.8bn, inflation returned to target, and the cedi staged a spectacular comeback. After two years of turbulence. 4. The governor got a spring in his step and the Finance Minister ordered a new suit with specially inflated shoulder pads. 5. Whilst the gains have been real, the machine that has been delivering this economy-cooling love has been running hot. Red steaming hot! 5. Bank of Ghana (BoG) created cedis to buy gold, converted the gold into dollars, then borrowed a lot of the cedis back through OMO bills to stop inflation. And did a boogie round the block. 5. Call it macroeconomic judo: beautiful when it all comes together, dangerous when the mat starts slipping. 6. The price tag of the show ticket is brutal. 7. BoG lost about $1.25bn in 2025, while wider comprehensive losses pushed the damage toward $2.8bn. 8. Its negative equity is now around $9bn. Because BoG is a central bank, nobody serious is writing an obituary. This is not the case of the Bank of the city-government of Amsterdam in the 18th Century. 9. But that doesn't mean that the losses are a footnote either. The "negative equity" number (pegged to GDP size) is among the highest the world has ever seen. One may still wonder: "can a central bank become technically insolvent?" 10. It can. Even if it doesn't keel over like the Bank of Amsterdam. 11. A more relevant question is whether BoG can keep paying for monetary stability without leaning on one-off tricks, opaque gold channels, and future Treasury rescue. 12. Strip out the big gold-sale gain and the celebrated policy-solvency surplus it has posted turns into a recurring deficit. 13. Meanwhile, nearly $9bn in OMO bills sits like a dammed-up river: fine if contained, dangerously inflationary if the wall cracks. 14. The gold programme has bought Ghana confidence, reserves, and breathing room. 15. It has also created a sterilisation treadmill where each victory needs another expensive victory just to keep going. 16. So yes, citizens should care. 17. It is actually in the middle of calm that one must prepare for the storm. 18. Except, of course, that in a katanomic democracy [], finding a sizable enough audience to care enough about Policy over Politics can be like hunting for cheap waakye in East Legon. Read more here: brightsimons.com/2026/05/bank-o…

I will be doing a more didactic take when I find the time, @fedahge

1. Bank of Ghana dropped a bombshell into the polarised political atmosphere this week: its delayed 2025 financials. 2. Delayed because by law the audited statement should have been approved by the Board and submitted to the Minister by end-March 2026. 3. The statements was not ready by end-March. They were approved and audited at end-April and published on May 1. 4. Meaning the BoG barely met the second legal deadline: publication by June. 5. Clearly, the BoG wrestled with a lot in the financials. Some even say that the change from Deloitte to KPMG was abrupt. Let's just leave that at gossip. 6. I have many substantive things to say. For now, I will sum them up in the attached infographics and a leave a few short notes here. 7. The ruling NDC really criticised the BoG when it was in opposition for the capital hole of ~$4.3 billion. The current Opposition, which was in government then, now gets to pay them back for the capital hole widening to ~$7.4 billion+. Central Bank independence? Ghanaian politicos have never believed in that theory. 8. Tossing the partisanship aside, there are some grave issues that need better explanation. 9. The BoG's losses and negative equity position (benchmarked against GDP) are some of the worst any central bank anywhere has reported. And for successive years. Unlike Czech Republic, which also reported negative equity for successive years, the BoG's losses include massive quasi-fiscal items. 9. The gold programs are far costlier than they were made to look. Nearly a billion dollars in losses. 10. The BoG would like us to believe that it is "policy-solvent", i.e. its income is enough to cover the costs of its mandate, but it seems to be relying a lot on accounting gymnastics. 11. It announced a surplus of $436 million on the operating income ledger. But that is only because it booked $760m in a one-off gold reserves sale. Without that it would have reported a $323 million operating loss. 12. Likewise, its "other income" jacked up from $31m in 2024 to nearly $170m+ in 2025 because it got reimbursed by the Finance Ministry for IMF SDR allocation costs. The problem is that the SDR allocation cost doesn't tally for 2025. The cost should have been about $35m. So, how does the Ministry refund $170m+? 13. "Other assets" have also seen a big jump because apparently commercial banks took a bunch of dollars from the Gold-for-Reserves program and, as at year end, was yet to settle. Because of that "other assets" jumped from ~$900m to ~$2.1 billion. 14. Meanwhile, the costs associated with the aggressive cedi management (OMO) has hit nearly $7.5bn (OMO liabilities). 15. That said, the BoG has broad national support to stay the course so I don't see the NPP succeeding in reaping a lot of political benefits from attacking it. Unless the cedi starts to slump. And, to be fair, some of this year's losses stem from the Cedi's sharp rally leading to the BoG's dollar assets losing value. Much to chew on, so more later.

@NanaQuequ The stock of liabilities is different from the annual expense flow. Clearer?

@BBSimons From the 2nd slide in the infographics on COST of Open market Operations ie GHC16.73Billion up from GHC8.6Billion however point 14 in the essay states the Cost of Open Market Operation to be excess of $7Billion Is it my accounting illiteracy at play or,…..🤦🏾‍♂️

@AnaglateEnoch @TheHighStreetJ Shared on my wall!

@TheHighStreetJ @BBSimons Good morning Bright. I am looking for your take on the BoG audited account and surrounding issues

When a Mine Becomes a Time Bomb: How ‘Mismanagement’ is Risking Towns Around Bogoso-Prestea wp.me/pfOUlK-vug @BBSimons

The Heath Goldfields–Trafigura ‘Love Affair’: A Financing Deal That Fell Short & Still Undercut Ghana wp.me/pfOUlK-vuo @BBSimons @ImaniAfr

Bogoso-Prestea Mines: A World-Class Valuable Mine Undermined by Poor Gov’t Control & Lack of Investment wp.me/pfOUlK-vu5 @BBSimons @ImaniAfr

Watch the discussion on "Bogoso-Prestea Gold Mine: Chaos Where There Should Be Gold (The Duffours' Bogoso and Kantanomics) facilitated by @BBSimons, Vice President, @ImaniAfr. Watch live here: youtu.be/MIt5fmPah0c #Mining #GhanaNews

Very interesting essay on the risks of cognitive offloading AI by my friend, Bright Simons. theideasletter.org/essay/the-soci…

@CadmanAttaMills Hmmmmmmmnnnnn...Wofa! I am trying to *understand* from first principles first. Before even going into merits and consequences.

@BBSimons Oh brother!!! That is all Africa needs: Reviving Feudalism and the Feudal mode of production. Are we serious?

1. Talking about King Atehene of Kubala brings up the issue of monarchy as a way of reviving African traditional values and systems. 2. The notion of revival and vitalisation of Africa's old ways has been linked by many wise people to a mindset revolution that can defeat neocolonialism and imperialism. 3. Essentially, so the argument goes, remembering the greatness of Africa's past will steel the resolve of modern-day Africans to build big and proud. 4. Atehene and his followers don't want to even stop there. They think it is time for Africa's own imperial conquests. 5. This is where they part company with many Africanists I know who argue that reviving authentic African traditions should not involve replicating 19th Century Eurocentric notions of greatness in such forms as colonisation and imperialism. 6. What then are we to make of the revival of Gbaramatu kingdom in the Ijaw lands of Nigeria's Delta? 7. According to its current "royal historians", the kingdom dates from 14 AD, in the time of Christ. But the royal house itself dates from 1372, when the first Pere (King) was crowned. 8. Somehow the kingdom was forgotten. 9. In 1996, it got revived with the establishment of Warri by the Nigerian federal government as an administrative unit of Delta State. 10. In 2016, it got a King. 11. Many Ijaws are adamant that the Kingdom has been made up. That its claims of ancient pedigree are all fabricated. 12. Gbaramatu people are, unsurprisingly, aghast. They insist on the glorious past of their new Kingdom. They have revived customs, built palaces, and assembled very rich and elaborate regalia. 13. Ah, the regalia! Such pomp! What dazzle. Still, I cannot fathom why one of the major symbols adorning the royal throne room of Gbaramatu looks like the Statue of Liberty in New York. 14. Actually it models Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, complete with the spiked crown of Helios, the Sun God of imperial Rome. And, of course, the New York statue's creator aimed for the grandeur of the Colossus placed at the Harbour in ancient Rhodes. 15. One also sometimes see another modern Nigerian monarch, Asari Dokubo, in a Byzantine crown ringed with gemstones. As well as a crowned helmet reminiscent of the German Kaisers. Even the Ooni of Ife sometimes rides in something that looks like a European carriage. 16. Is this "reverse appropriation"? "symbolic counter-colonisation"? Or something else? 17. Or is it simply the case that the task of reconstructing the past often goes to those with a bit of money in African society rather than those who can work with genuine custodians of cultural memory? 18. Or is "remembrance" itself often in the way of creative freedom? 19. No. I think it is simpler. Those who do such reviving, especially for obscure African histories and kingdoms, are naturally mavericks and resistors. They know that many of their contemporaries won't get it anyway. 20. This is their way of shocking us into paying attention.

@CadmanAttaMills Oh Wofa! 😂🤦🏽‍♂️

@BBSimons The Scotts suffer fools badly. He is better off in Ghana.

I am very disappointed in King Atehene of the expanding kingdom of Kubala. He assembled his nobles, marched on Scotland, and colonised the woods for the glory of Africa. Then some killjoys brought in the Police. What is the business of police in a geopolitical matter anyway? 🤷🏾‍♂️ So King Atehene was deported back to Ghana by po-faced Police. Clearly, His Majesty has been wronged. But instead of assembling forces to avenge his honour in Scotland, he has decided instead to come and compete with our Kings and Queens in Ghana for the small glory they are enjoying. This is not why Osagyefo suffered for this generation! #com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/…

Having been sued multiple times for relying on proper and, sometimes, official records, I completely accept the position of MFWA's erudite lawyers. 4th Estate was entirely justified to publish the excess pay scandal. But I have another concern: LOW-INFO ELITISM. If elites in Ghana did any serious reading out of curiosity about what REALLY goes on in this country, they would have known that Auditor General reports in Ghana are constantly riddled with errors. Some national learning would thus have happened and proper quality assurance implemented. Of course, in a katanomic society the elites join in the "noise", and then promptly go back to arguing about English Premier League drivel. 🤨 No one has any time for detail. Recap: brightsimons.com/2021/08/why-gh…

Happening right now in Oxford: Bright and colleague panelists will be discussing the future of work and talent management in Africa. What will the continent look look like in 2045? AI, economic growth, higher education shifts, policy innovation, etc. The whole nine yards.

In a thought-provoking piece, IMANI’s VP, @BBSimons challenges dominant narratives about artificial intelligence, arguing that AI does not truly “think” but reflects the collective intelligence of human society. Read here: 🔗 myjoyonline.com/bright-simons-… #IMANI #AI