Claim: News reports claim Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has invited the 98 New Patriotic Party Members of Parliament for a meeting over their threat to boycott the 2023 budget presentation.
Verdict: Completely false. A statement released from the former President’s office and signed by his Senior Aide and Spokesperson, Dr Kwabena Osei-Adubofour, described the reports as untrue.
Full Story
The claim that Former President Kufuor has invited some NPP Members of Parliament threatening to boycott the 2023 budget presentation if President Akufo-Addo does not sack Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta went viral, with several news portals publishing it. These news reports claim the former president wants to resolve the matter amicably.
Already, President Akufo-Addo has pleaded with the MPs to hold on till Ghana concludes negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The President says that terminating the appointment of Mr Ofori-Atta will disrupt the program. The MPs claim that the current economic hardship in the country is enough grounds for the finance minister to be sacked.
The claim went viral Thursday, November 17, 2022, after some news sites such as ghanaweb.com, yen.com, and starrfmonline.com published it. These three online sites are among the most visited sites in Ghana.
The report on the news site has also been archived using the Wayback Machine, a digital archive platform.
Verification
We first examined the social media handles of the office of Former President John Agyekum Kufuor to find out if such a call had been made to these NPP MPs, but there was none.
DUBAWA, however, found out that the office of the former president has described such reports as false. This was sighted in a statement on Thursday, November 17, signed by his Senior Aide and Spokesperson, Dr Kwabena Osei-Adubofour.
“We wish to bring to the public’s attention that there is no truth to the said publication,” the statement indicated.
It further added that the former president “vehemently detests the developing trend in disinformation that mischievously seeks to draw President Kufuor into issues that he has not commented on.”
“The former President is as concerned as, or more so than others, for the wellbeing and stability of Ghana, and is in his own way doing whatever he can for the nation to get on top of the seemingly intractable difficulties currently engulfing our society, and would be the last person to play petty and uninformed politics in the circumstances.”
The office also expressed worry over what it felt has become a blatant attribution of stories to the former President.
“The office of the former President vehemently detests the developing trend in disinformation that mischievously seeks to draw President Kufuor into issues that he has not commented on,” the statement added.
Conclusion
The report that former President John Agyekum Kufuor has invited the 98 NPP Members of Parliament over their call on President Akufo-Addo to sack Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is false.
