CLAIM: A message circulating on social media, particularly WhatsApp, states NDC invited the media to a press conference on Saturday, March 25th.
VERDICT: FALSE. NDC did not invite media houses for a press conference after ministerial approval on Friday, March 24, 2023.
Full Text
On the night of Saturday, March 25, 2023, at about 10:30 GMT, a message was circulating on social media, particularly on WhatsApp platforms; this message as seen in screenshots below was inviting media houses to a press conference to be organised by the National Democratic Congress at UPSA Campus that day.
Agenda for this purported meeting was to explain what happened on the floor of parliament that night to the approval of some six ministerial nominees of the ruling government.
Practically, President Nana Akufo-Addo appointed some six new ministers (after such portfolios became vacant when their occupants resigned some months ago). The nominees were vetted and hoped to be approved by Parliament as stipulated in Article 78 (1) and Article 79 (1) of the 1992 Constitution. But the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) cautioned her members in Parliament not to collaborate or work with the majority New Patriotic Party (NPP) in approving such nominees.
After the thorough vetting process, the appointment committee presented them to be voted for; this was done Mar 24, 2023, amidst prolonged debates and suspensions.
Surprisingly, the results resulted in favour of the NPP caucus, which the Ghanaian public, and NDC members find surprising due to the hung Parliament with a membership of 136 each on the floor. If the minority had obeyed the orders of the party leaders, it would have been a tie which would translate to a loss vote for the six nominees as stated in Article 104 (3) of the Constitution.
Verification
At about 11:00 PM GMT, the researcher quickly visited all the official social media pages of the party to find out if such a communique was posted inviting media houses to a press conference, but nothing relating to that was found. For instance, on Facebook, OfficialNDCGhana, their last post was about Alhaji Suhini making a presentation nine hours earlier. NDC National Communications Bureau also had a post a day earlier. On Twitter, OfficialNDCGh shared a video from the NDC minority Caucus eight hours earlier.
The researcher contacted NDC General Secretary, Mr Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, via WhatsApp chat to ascertain the veracity of the information. In his response, the General Secretary denied this by even pointing out grammatical errors in the message.
On the official Twitter page of @SammyGyamfi, NDC national communication director, none of such invitations were found.
On the day of the supposed meeting, DUBAWA monitored, but no such meeting was announced. It is not clear yet who may have been behind spreading this false information or the motive behind it.
Conclusion
After investigations, it was revealed that the party did not issue any official invitation like that on any of their media outlets when that message was circulating on social media.
The individuals with the locus to issue such information, too, denied ever issuing any invitation. Therefore, the invitation message is not officially from the NDC party.
The researcher produced this fact-check per the DUBAWA 2023 Kwame Karkari Fellowship in partnership with Avenor TV, shinemegh.com and Chanell 7 7 Networks to facilitate the ethos of ‘’truth’’ in journalism and enhance media literacy in the country.
