Claim: A video of gunfire on air in a dark sky is emanating from Bawku conflict
The video shows clashes in Iraq 2020 and not from the Bawku conflict.
Full Text
Following a renewed recurrent chieftaincy conflict between the Kusasis and Mamprusis in Bawku of the Upper East Region, the Minister of Interior imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the area. In addition, there is a ban on wearing smocks, a traditional and preferred wear of the people by the Upper East Regional Security Council, in a bid to prevent people from concealing weapons for potential attacks. Tensions have further resulted in the shut down of schools within the conflict zones as parents fear their wards may be attacked.
Following these ongoing issues, a video has been found making the rounds on WhatsApp groups and on YouTube with 428 views by Architecture Design TV, and viewed by 1.3K people on Twitter in a post by Johnystixs on 23rd, 24th, and 25th November, 2021 respectively. All these posts suggested that the video in question is from the ongoing Bawku conflict.
Screenshot of the post on WhatsAppScreenshot of the video posted on Twitter
Background of the Bawku Conflict
The conflict is a chieftaincy dispute between the Kusasis who are said to be the first settlers and the Mamprusis who were sent as soldiers during the reign of Naa- Gbewaa from the Northern Region to help the Kusassis defeat the Busangas, an ethnic group which came from Burkina Faso and wanted to take the land of the Kusasis at the time.
The Mamprusi settled after the war, being the minority ethnic group among the Kusasis, Morshis and the Busangas as the major tribe’s settlers in Bawku. The conflicting interest is chieftaincy paramountcy between the two. The first phase of the conflict occurred in 1982- 1985, second phase in 2000- 2001, third phase in 2007- 2013 and finally the current happenings which are said to have been restored according to a Ghana News Agency report.
In the 2000- 2001 conflict alone, the Ghana News Agency reported that 60 people were confirmed dead, 2,500 people displaced, and 190 houses in and around Bawku got burnt.
Verification
To ascertain the truth behind the video, Dubawa conducted a Google reverse image search and found that the video was first published in Arabic by a Russian State Media RT website on Facebook on July 28th, 2020 entitled “Violent confrontation with weapons between two Iraqi Clans.”
Further checks revealed that the same video was posted by an Instagram user on 21th April, 2021 with the claim that it was filmed at the presidential palace in Chad on the evening that President Idriss Déby’s death was announced but this claim was fact- checked by AFP to be that of the clash in Iraq 2020.
The same video was again posted by a Twitter user on 21 July, 2021 and captioned “There is a big war going on in Chad, next is Nigeria, Get ready” and was fact-checked by France24.com to be that of the clash in Iraq 2020 while making reference to the multiple times the video has surfaced on the internet with different claims.
Conclusion
The video shows clashes in Iraq 2020 between the Al-Bu Ali and Al-Nawafil tribes in the area of Al-Kahla in southern Iraq and not from the Bawku conflict.
This report was produced under the Dubawa Student Fact-checking Project aimed at offering students in tertiary schools aspiring to take up roles in the profession the opportunity to acquire real-world experience through verification and fact-checking.
Claim: Ghana is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to record a positive GDP growth in 2020, General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, John Boadu, has said.
False, according to figures from the World Bank and IMF, several countries in sub-Saharan Africa recorded a positive economic growth rate in 2020.
While on the show, Boadu made some arguments to encourage Ghanaians to accept the policies in the 2022 budget as presented by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
Whilst touting the government’s efforts in building a resilient economy in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Boadu said that the economy of other countries did not perform as well as Ghana’s did.
“The economies of other countries couldn’t perform as well as ours did. The whole sub-Saharan African countries, none of them was able to pose a positive growth, none,” he told host Kwame Sefa Kayi.
“Our 0.4% growth is better than a negative,” he continued.
Economic growth is defined as the increase in the market value of goods and services produced by an economy over time. It is usually measured as a percentage rate of increase in the real gross domestic product (GDP).
The most comprehensive measure of overall economic performance is gross domestic product or GDP, which measures the “output” or total market value of goods and services produced in the domestic economy during a particular time period.
According to the World Bank, economic growth in Western and Central Africa contracted by 1.1% in 2020. In East and Southern Africa, the growth contraction in 2020 is estimated at -3.
To ascertain the truth or otherwise of the claim, Dubawa referred to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund figures for the 2020 GDP growth of all 46 countries.
A total of 14 out of the 46 countries, had recorded a positive economic growth rate in 2020, according to data from the World Bank and the IMF.
Data from the World Bank indicated that Burundi, Cameroon, The Gambia, and Uganda recorded a positive economic growth in 2020. However, data from the IMF and Statista said otherwise.
The World Bank indicated that East Africa’s Comoros recorded a 4.9% economic growth in 2020; however, the country’s data of their GDP growth rate is not available on the IMF website.
From the above, it is evident that Ghana was not the only country to have recorded positive growth in sub-saharan Africa in 2020.
Conclusion
Data from the World Bank and the IMF and other sources agree that 14 Sub-Saharan countries, including Ghana, had recorded a positive economic growth rate in 2020.
The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party’s claim that Ghana is the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa to record a positive growth rate is false.
This report was produced under the Dubawa Student Fact-checking Project aimed at offering students in tertiary schools aspiring to take up roles in the profession the opportunity to acquire real-world experience through verification and fact-checking.
This follows a walkout staged by the majority caucus made up of members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Friday, November 26, 2021, when the debate on the budget was to be concluded.
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin ruled that proceedings continue despite the walkout, allowing the opposition MPs the louder voice to vote ‘No’ on the question of whether the budget should be approved.
It believes that only 137 minority MPs voted on the budget, and that number does not meet the minimum number of 138 MPs needed to take a decision on the approval of a budget.
“For the record, the acts of the Minority and the decision of the Speaker to endorse it, constitute an unconstitutionality and an illegality and should be disregarded, as same is void and of no effect whatsoever,” they said in a statement but this is being debated.
After receiving the budget from the Executive, it is expected to debate it and either approve or disapprove it.
Approving it means that resource allocations to the various ministries, departments and agencies and all other expenditures, plans and activities of the government for the next financial year are cleared to go on.
If the budget is rejected by parliament, there will be no appropriation and in effect, no government spending can be done for the financial year in question.
Since parliament is the only arm of government with that power, the only remedy would be that the government (Executive), through the Minister of Finance, widely consult all the relevant parties and resubmit a revised policy statement taking into consideration the concerns of those unhappy with it.
TheWay forward
The majority in parliament is expecting a reversal of the ruling and have threatened to go to court if parliament insists.
A senior assistant clerk of the Parliament of Ghana, Dr Ernest Darfour says going to court can be considered but that could be the last resort since parliament has two major internal options for addressing such cases.
“Two procedural remedies immediately come to mind. The first is to challenge the pronouncement of the Rt Hon. Speaker on the voice vote after the question had been put, which must be immediate. The second is to file a motion of rescission, praying the House to rescind its earlier decision. Persons can also seek the Court’s intervention as to the constitutionality of the process or the procedure adopted at arriving at a decision,” he said.
The most appropriate time to trigger the first option is immediately after the Speaker’s declaration of which voice won.
With that, any legislator can challenge it on two key bases, including the fact that the House did not form a quorum at the time of the vote.
The second option “is to file a motion of rescission for the House to reconsider its decision to reject the Government’s Budget Statement and Economic Policy for the 2022 financial year. The motion of rescission can be introduced at any time with leave from the Speaker and the House upon a notice. After the motion has been admitted, a member would move the motion stating the defects in the procedure adopted in the earlier motion and why the House should reconsider and rescind its decision. The motion must be seconded. Debate on the new motion will ensue, after which the House will vote to either reject or approve the motion of rescission,” Dr Darfour explained.
Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Service has announced that the Speaker of Parliament will leave the country on Saturday, November 27, 2021, for the United Arab Emirates for medical review. He returns to the country on Tuesday, December 14, 2021.
When the news of an alleged attack on one of Ghana’s popular musicians broke in October, the internet was rife with so much speculation. The reports had indicated that the musician, Shatta Wale, had been shot by some unknown gunmen in his house according to his personal assistant. As would be expected anywhere in the world, several social media users began to look for the truth. The only source of information for some of them were social media pages of various news organizations.
Some few hours later, some very well established media houses in Ghana, reported on their social media pages that the musician was battling for his life and in a critical condition. On the same day, reports emerged that the whole situation was made up by the musician and his team. Social media users could not wrap their head around these reports that had somehow suggested that they had the media houses had more facts to the story.
While it is important to note that media organizations also get it wrong sometimes, we cannot underestimate the impact that action may have on people, given the rate at which news is distributed in the social media age. In fact, a 2017 Poynter Institute report listed some of the top media errors and corrections by top media organizations in the US, a subtle acceptance of the media’s ability to screw up sometimes. However, the point remains that the media houses failed to do a proper fact-checking for a story of that magnitude before the report was published. This is just one of several other instances where news organizations report wrong facts in Ghana. The problem is that they may usually not issue a correction. “People will get over it, let’s just delete it” becomes their mantra. But if there’s anything refreshing about the fight against misinformation, it is that a number of conscious citizens are becoming more aware of issues around them, and questioning facts than ever before.
In this piece, we provide some important approaches as fact-checkers to newsrooms to enhance their news reporting skills. As important as it is for news organizations to have fact-checking desks, they should be able to operate without one because the basic idea of quality journalism requires that sources are cross-checked and claims, fact-checked.
These tips will help newsrooms negotiate that thin line between speed and accuracy.
Keep a database of all documents
It may seem like a lot of work but keeping a database -online or offline- of various documents can come in handy when needed for verification. Institutions, government and public officials, agencies and politicians may not always make their documents available when you need them the most. At worst, documents get deleted from online databases. Even in cases where you have the right to request them, bureaucratic procedures may cause delay. This is because our biggest fear, and sometimes regret as fact-checkers is our inability to counter fake news in time.
Keeping a database makes you move faster. Factual information is always available to start off your fact-checking process. It is essential to also categorize this database as an effective strategy for future search activities.
There is no one way of doing this but using relatable categories can come in handy for everyone. There are important online tools such as Google Drive and Dropbox to help you keep electronic copies of documents in online folders. You can keep a list of useful links too.
Maintain an updated list of contacts
Newsrooms are quick to admit that they do this. However, keeping a database of contacts of politicians and pundits alone is not enough. If what we have seen in past years of fact-checking is anything to go by, false claims usually come from these people. So, go beyond that and keep a list of experts whose understanding of subjects are important to your report.
Just like in managing your documents, contacts can also be categorised. This ensures that there is always another person to corroborate the facts or give a humanistic approach to it in areas of health, medicine, economic issues etc. Having multiple experts on standby is a good way to ensure availability of important data all time.
Invest in digital tools
Even though the advancement in technology has played a major role in the spread of fake news as a result of the opportunities it affords us in digital media, artificial intelligence and creative tools, it has also presented us with great opportunities to deal with the same menace. To be able to be ahead in the game, photo and video verification tools can help you fact-check visual elements faster. Some of these applications may require some kind of financial commitment but they will be worth it. There are also various tools to help you check locations, identify streets and even car number plates of different countries.
Visualize Reports
Graphs, infographics, illustrations and short videos are not only pleasing to the eyes. They help break down complex information into interesting and readable pieces that bulky texts deprive us of. The goal of journalists and fact-checkers alike is to get the right information to a target audience, and if there is a better and effective approach to do this, why not. The age of social media makes this point even more relevant. Whether you have an in-house designer or illustrator, or you are making use of online tools to create.
Periodic Training of Journalists
As already stated in the introduction about establishing fact-checking desks, you may really not need it if you equip your journalists with enough skills in fact-checking to be able to do it on their own. Make use of fact-checking experts in fact-checking organizations who have the necessary skills to train journalists periodically. The truth is that new verification tools, methods and approaches continue to emerge. Dubawa Ghana provides such training programmes annually for journalists as part of our programmes and also upon request.
To end this piece, let me state that we understand how important it is for media organizations to get the news out in a very timely manner. This is probably one of the reasons why fact-checking is sometimes relegated to the background in newsrooms aside from reporters not being equipped enough to do that. However, from our experience as fact-checkers, accuracy and speed can work together just fine. It may not happen all the time but it is important to also not throw caution to the wind in our line of work.
As part of its core mandate of championing research-based factual and verifiable content online and offline, Dubawa, a transnational fact-checking project of the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), is set to begin its annual Media and Information Literacy campaign for 2021.
The campaign, dubbed Week for Truth, is a week-long lineup of events and activities all advocating for accurate information to be upheld in public policy, public discourse, and journalistic practice.
Running for the second time since 2019, this year’s Week for Truth starts on Monday the 15th of November till Friday the 19th of November 2021 across all five Anglophone West African countries Dubawa operates in – Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia.
Events and activities scheduled within the week include:
A one-day nationwide senior high school outreach by over 90 Dubawa-trained volunteers, to educate students on Media and Information Literacy, and basic fact-checking and critical thinking skills.
A one-day media and information quiz session across Dubawa’s social media pages, which promises prizes to winners.
A two-day Information Disorder conference, which will engage professionals, academics, researchers, and the general public in analysing the consequences of information disorder, approaches, and experiences in tackling it; government and civic engagement; balancing and regulations; and fact-checking.
A week-long mainstream and social media literacy campaign, on radio stations and Dubawa’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram page respectively.
Dubawa’s Programme Manager, Mr. Adedeji Adekunle, explains the purpose of Week for Truth and what it hopes to contribute to society.
“At Dubawa, we believe that the best way to counter the information disorder problem is to preempt it. That means the goal is to equip every citizen with the necessary knowledge to discern the veracity of the information they come across. This campaign, while imparting such skills, will also draw the attention of the public to the risks around the information they receive and share, and the consequences of enabling misinformation,” Mr. Adekunle said.
In a present age faced with diverse global digital and information challenges, the need for all media users to become media and information literate has become even more crucial. Dubawa, thus, calls on the entire public to participate in its week-long programme, Week for Truth, to further the agenda of amplifying the culture of truth in society.
On November 2, 2021, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia delivered a public lecture on the digital economy of the country at Ashesi University. The public lecture, dubbed #BawumiaSpeaks, also had an interactive session with students and invited guests on how ‘digitization’ is transforming the economy and positioning Ghana for the emerging global digital revolution.
Dubawa verified a number of claims made by the Vice President and identified a mix of true, false and mostly false claims in part one of our report.
Similar findings were made in Part 2 of our fact-check of the Vice President’s speech.
Claim 1: Ghana currently has the largest medical drone delivery service in the world
There is not enough evidence to give precise data on the volume of service that Ghana provides compared to other countries, even though it has been reported by various outlets that it is the largest medical drone delivery service in the world.
“In the last year, we completed roughly 4,000 lifesaving emergency deliveries, but what we’re launching in Ghana is about 20 times the scale of that,” said Zipline’s Rinaudo, who adds that the company currently serves 25 facilities in Rwanda and is on track to serve nearly 2,000 facilities in Ghana by the end of the year.
Also, The Head of Communication of Zipline, Justine Hamilton, in an interview with Joy News in 2019 during the launch of Zipline said it “will be rolling out all four basins, and ultimately it will be serving over 2,000 clinics and up to 12 million people in Ghana”.
Claim 2: We engaged Google last year and they have agreed to integrate our digital address system (house number, street names, and digital address) into Google Maps. We are hoping to complete the integration by the end of the year. This will be the first such integration of a country’s digital property address system into Google Maps that I am aware of
Fact-checker: Maxine Gloria Danso
Verification
It was announced on the official Instagram account of the Abu Dhabi Government Media Office on 11 October 2021 that in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abu Dhabi now has 200,000 building addresses in Google Maps. This is reported to be part of the emirate’s Onwani unified addressing system by the Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport.
The post adds that more than 19,000 street names have been created with their navigation systems also accessible on Google Maps.
UAE launched this ahead of Ghana and will not make Ghana the first country to integrate digital address systems into Google Maps when it is finally launched by the end of 2021.
Furthermore, beyond being any country’s initiative or having exclusivity, in 2020, Google introduced a feature known as Plus Codes – a free, open-source digital address-making system – that enables everyone in the world to have access to a digital address searchable in Google Maps. This even includes places where there are no digital addresses or street names or even streets that currently exist.
“The Plus Codes use latitude and longitude to produce a short, easy-to-share digital address that can represent any location on the planet. For example, the Plus Code “W2GJ+JQ, Johannesburg” represents the main entrance to the Google office in Johannesburg, South Africa. Put this code into Google Maps or Google Search and you’ll be brought right to our front door in Johannesburg,” Google explains.
Google further details how anyone can generate their own digital address to be searched in Google Maps here.
Claim 3: Ghana is the first country that I know of in Africa to implement a Universal QR Code payment system that accommodates both bank accounts and mobile wallets.
A number of foreign reports show that Ghana’s launch of a QR Universal Code in March 2020 makes her the first African country with this initiative.
According to a report by FinTech Futures in October 2020, Ghana is the first African country to harmonise a QR Code payment system that allows for payments to be made through bank accounts, mobile wallets, and cards.
This is corroborated with another report by QR Code Tiger which lists how African countries are integrating QR Codes in a diverse number of sectoral services.
“Due to the vagaries of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ghana’s central bank has launched a universal QR code payment solution with HPS or (Hightech Payment Systems) just last year, making it the first African country to introduce a universal QR code system,” the report reads.
On a global front, a report by Global Government Forum published in September 2019 shows that countries such as Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and China launched theirs before Ghana.
However, the QR Codes of these countries mainly facilitate e-payment for bank transactions (except China which also has mobile money payment) whereas Ghana is among the few African countries with a bank and mobile money payment system initiatives.
QR Codes stand for Quick Responses Codes. It provides customers and merchants the convenience and safety to simply use their smartphones to scan the QR code and make electronic payments from their bank accounts, debit cards, and mobile money wallets. This initiative facilitates electronic payment among small-scale and large-scale businesses where merchants can instantly receive payments through a static or dynamic QR code.
Claim 4: Inflation reduced from 15% to near single digits over the last five years
According to the IMF, inflation measures how much more expensive a set of goods and services has become over a certain period, usually a year.
The most well-known indicator of inflation is the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the percentage change in the price of a basket of goods and services consumed by households.
Figures from all four institutions concerning Ghana’s inflation rate indicate that Ghana recorded a double-digit (about 17.0+%) inflation in 2015, 2016, and 2017 but has since dropped to single digits since 2018.
According to figures from the World Bank and Statista, Ghana’s inflation rate for 2020 had hit 9.9%, making it single-digit inflation.
Also, Ghana’s inflation rate as of December 2020, according to figures from the Ghana Statistical Service is 10.4%, which qualifies to be near single-digit inflation as described by the Vice-President.
Claim 5: Recorded positive trade balance in successive years; best in more than a decade
Figures from the World Bank, IMF, Bank of Ghana, and the Finance Ministry do not support this assertion by the Vice-President.
Fact-checker: Jeffrey Nyabor
Verification
According to the Corporate Finance Institute, Trade Balance, also known as balance of trade (BOT), refers to the difference between the monetary value of a country’s imports and exports over a given time period.
Balance of Trade is declared as positive when there is trade surplus; that is when the monetary value for exports is greater than the monetary value for imports.
However, when the monetary value for exports is less than the monetary value for imports, then there is a trade deficit, also known as a negative trade balance.
To establish a country’s Balance of Trade, one would have to look at the country’s current account – which is one of the components of a country’s Balance of Payments.
The claim by the Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, suggests that Ghana’s exports have exceeded its imports in successive years over the past five years.
Evidently, Ghana has not recorded a positive balance of trade in successive years, at least since 2005.
In fact, according to World Bank figures, Ghana last recorded a positive balance of trade in 1980.
Claim 6: Ghana is the first country in Africa to implement a digital system in combination with house numbers and street names.
In 2016, Ivory Coast adopted and implemented the Digital Addressing System, What3words, which generates accurate and fixed addresses.
Fact-checker: Baraka Issahaku
Verification:
Ghana, in 2017 under the NPP government introduced the Digital Address System in collaboration with GhanaPost. Ivory Coast in 2016, adopted the What3words digital addressing system as an addressing standard for La Poste, the Côte d’Ivoire’s national postal system, which gave even rural communities official addresses.
In a report by CNET and CNN in 2016 and 2017 respectively, a combination of just three words allows every location within 3m by 3m squares to be identified. At the time of writing the report, however, BBC reported that there was a challenge of people accessing their digital addresses because not every Ivorian owns a mobile phone with Internet access.
What3words is a startup based in London. The application records GPS coordinates to nine-square-meter plots and simplifies them into a three-word combination to identify specific locations. It has been described as a lifesaver by British police.
Does What3words Application generate street addresses?
In order to ascertain the street addressing feature of the application, we downloaded, installed, and ran it.
The application can be found on the Google play store for Android users. After installation, what3words works with the location and thus needs permission to activate it. The application puts every location into 3m by 3m squares and therefore has every location under its radar, allowing it to generate street addresses as well. However, the application states that street names may not always point to the precise location.
Nonetheless, the application has the satellite view option which allows viewers to see exactly what the location looks like.
Image: Screenshot from What3words Application
The application also allows viewers to navigate by using transportation apps like Uber, Bolt, among others. Additionally, specific locations can be shared with others, using the map view or satellite view option.
Images: Screenshots from What3words
Ivory Coast adopted and implemented this technology in 2016, indicating that they are far ahead of Ghana in the digitization of addresses in Africa.
Claim: Viral WhatsApp message suggests that there is an end to the microwave industry as the Japanese government has decided to dispose of all microwaves before the year ends.
Japan is not disposing of all microwaves. The message being recirculated is a dated viral WhatsApp message that is false.
Full Text
A WhatsApp message making the rounds has suggested that the Japanese government has undertaken a move to rid the country of all microwaves before the end of the year.
The message suggests that a scientist at the University of Hiroshima found that radio waves from microwave appliances cause greater harm to the health of citizens over 20 years.
“End of the microwave industry!!!!! Japan govt has decided to dispose of all the microwave ovens in the country before the year ends… Experts found that food heated in microwave ovens has very unhealthy vibrations and radiation. All the factories of ‘microwave ovens’ in Japan are being closed…”
Images: Screenshot of viral message
Verification
A basic google search on ‘microwaves being disposed of by the Japanese government’ revealed a hoard of fact-checks produced at various periods, all with false verdicts. Fact-checks have been produced by organisations like AFP (May 2019), Factly (January 2020), Timesofindia (August 2019), and Rappler (October 2019).
Snopes in 2019 debunked the claim, stating the origin of the claim to be from a Russian Satire website Panorama.pub on March 3rd, 2019, which was later picked up and circulated by other online platforms. The claim was then published across Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp in various languages like Arabic and Spanish.
The page however has stated beneath the post that,
“Все тексты на этом сайте представляют собой гротескные пародии на реальность и не являются реальными новостями”, which translated to English means, “All texts on this site are grotesque parodies of reality and are not real news.”
We further conducted a google search to find out if credible news agencies had carried such news but came up with nothing. The Japanese government’s official Twitter page also has no record of such an announcement. A search for “microwave ban” on the Twitter page showed no result.
Does cooking or heating food cause the food to become radioactive?
A report by the U.S Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), titled, Microwave Oven Radiation, has stated that the appliance is safe for use.
“Microwaves are produced inside the oven by an electron tube called a magnetron. The microwaves are reflected within the metal interior of the oven where they are absorbed by food. Microwaves cause water molecules in food to vibrate, producing heat that cooks the food. That’s why foods that are high in water content, like fresh vegetables, can be cooked more quickly than other foods. The microwave energy is changed to heat as it is absorbed by food, and does not make food “radioactive” or “contaminated.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also indicated that microwaves are safe for use once they are used in compliance with safety regulations in order to avoid being exposed to microwaves meant to be contained within the appliance and potential burns.
“To dispel some misconceptions, it is important to realize that food cooked in a microwave oven does not become “radioactive”. Nor does any microwave energy remain in the cavity or the food after the microwave oven is switched off. In this respect, microwaves act just like light; when the light bulb is turned off, no light remains,” the WHO says.
Conclusion
It is not true that microwaves have been banned by the Japanese government.
On November 2, 2021, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia delivered a public lecture on the digital economy of the country at Ashesi University. The public lecture, dubbed #BawumiaSpeaks, also had an interactive session with students and invited guests on how ‘digitization’ is transforming the economy and positioning Ghana for the emerging global digital revolution.
Dubawa verified a number of claims made by the Vice President and brings you our findings in this report.
Claim 1: We have identified and provided unique addresses for all properties in Ghana (7.5 million properties).
Although 7.5 million people have used the Ghana Post GPS address system since its inception, there are over 10 million structures counted during the Population and Housing Census conducted in 2021 of which 8 million and over are fully complete properties.
Fact-checker: Roselena Ahiable
Verification
According to the preliminary report from the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) released on September 22, a total of 10.7 million structures were counted in the country during the census. These structures were completed buildings, uncompleted buildings at various levels of completion above window level, and unconventional structures (such as metal containers, and kiosks). Twenty percent (20%) are metal containers, kiosks, and wooden structures.
The report further reveals that “over ten million (10,661,421) structures were counted during the listing, out of which 8,547,391 (80.2%) are fully completed i.e. roofed with windows and doors fixed.”
If the identified properties, as stated by the Vice President, is 7.5 million, then not all properties have been identified, as over a million fully completed structures have not been accounted for. Thus, addresses could not have been generated for them.
A June 2021 article, published on Health Developments, indicates that drones are still being used in Malawi to make healthcare accessible to people in rural communities.
A 2019 research, published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, captures Madagascar (1 Project; Nov 2017—Dec 2018), Malawi (2 projects; one in 2016 and the other 2017, both ongoing]) and Senegal (1 Project; Dec 2017—ongoing) among a group of early adopters piloting the use of bi-directional transport drones for health systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
Another publication in the History of Science and Technology Journal, published in 2021, acknowledged that countries such as Senegal, Madagascar, and Rwanda began the application of drones in healthcare delivery before Ghana.
“Countries like Senegal, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Malawi encouraged Ghana to consider the application of drones in her mainstream healthcare delivery,” a part of the publication reads.
Claim 3: Ghana is the first country in Africa and one of the few in the world to achieve this type of interoperability between bank accounts and mobile wallets.
Verdict: False. Ghana is not the first country in Africa to achieve interoperability between bank accounts and mobile wallets.
Fact-checker: Roselena Ahiable
Verification
This is not the first time Dr Bawumia would make this claim.
“But the other part of it is that you have made the bank account and the mobile money wallet interoperable. So you can move money between the bank account and the mobile money wallet and vice versa and you can also do the same with the E-Zwich account. So triangular interoperability is what we have done. And Kwame, this is the first country in Africa to do so. There is no other country in Africa that has been able to deliver mobile money interoperability,” he said during a one-on-one interview on Peace Fm’s Kokrooko on August 25th, 2020.
Dubawa found this claim false as other African countries started implementing interoperability before Ghana. Read more here.
Claim 4: In the USA, the Federal Reserve Bank does not have interoperability in its Real-Time Payments Network.
The Federal Reserve Bank in the United States of America does not have real-time payments interoperability yet.
Fact-checker: Roselena Ahiable
Verification
A Reuters report in August 2019 indicated that the United States Federal Reserve announced plans to develop a real-time payment and settlement system with an expected launch in 2023 or 2024.
As of September 3rd, 2021, another report in the PaymentsJournal, suggests that this is still pending as “The American Bankers Association recently asked the Federal Reserve to achieve a state of interoperability with The Clearing House RTP network.”
Furthermore, the AmericanBarAssociation has also indicated that the FedNowSM Service (FedNow), is expected to be launched in 2023 or 2024.
“FedNow is a real-time payment and settlement service that will incorporate clearing functionality into the process of settling each payment. This will allow financial institutions to exchange the information needed to make debits and credits to customer accounts and notify customers of completed or failed payments. FedNow will provide access through the Fed’s FedLine® network, which currently provides Federal Reserve Bank payment and information services to more than 10,000 financial institutions, both directly and through their agents”, the report reads.
Claim 5: Ghana’s cybersecurity ranking is now 89.6% compared to 32% in 2017.
Ghana scored 32.6% in the 2017 Global Security Index but scored 86.69% in the 2020 report.
Image: Page 51 of the 2017 Global Security Index by ITU
Claim 6: Internet penetration currently stands at 50% compared to 26% in 2017
According to datareportal and statista, Ghana currently has an internet penetration rate of 50%. However, contrary to the Vice President’s indication of Ghana recording a 26% internet penetration rate in 2017, we found that the correct figure is actually 28%. – higher than was suggested.
Fact-checker: Roselena Ahiable
Verification
Ghana’s internet penetration rate currently stands at 50% according to Statista, and datareportal.
Claim: Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam George, says that the European Court of Justice has ruled that homosexuality is not a human right issue.
The European Court of Justice has not given such a ruling.
Full Text
Ghanaian lawmaker, Sam George, has said that the European Court of Justice has delivered a ruling declaring that homosexuality is not a human right issue.
“What portion of the 1992 constitution [of Ghana] confers homosexual rights as human rights? When you read [Article] 12 which talks about protections of fundamental human rights, it says that rights shall not be taken away from anybody. Where it talks about discrimination, it is clear, it talks about the basis under which you cannot discriminate against a person. Sexual preference is not one of them. Sexual preference is not one of those rights. Homosexuality is a sexual preference,” he said.
“The European Court of Justice is the highest court in the EU. It has ruled that homosexuality is not a human right,” Sam George said.
According to the story, the European Court of Human Rights had ruled that there was no violation of human rights for an Austrian couple denied the right to marry.
There were no other immediate results found where an EU court had ruled that the human right of homosexuals had been violated.
The news story published by the Guardian can also be found on the BBC website.
The case was filed by two Austrian men who said the refusal of the Austrian government to allow them to get married was a violation of their human rights – their right to marry.
The Court, in its ruling, said that the Austrian government had not violated the human rights of the two men by refusing them marriage.
The court ruled that the decision of whether or not to allow same-sex marriage was left to regulation by the national law of the States in which the marriage takes place.
There are 14 human rights provisions in the Convention that are to be enjoyed by all persons in the European Union.
Of all the fourteen, the Right to Marry (Article 12 of the Convention) is the only provision that can be exercised or enjoyed in accordance with “national laws governing the exercise.”
It is worth noting that Article 14 of the Convention prohibits discrimination against all persons on whatever grounds.
It reads:
“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status [emphasis mine].”
“Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.” [emphasis mine]
According to an Article published on the website of the European Union Parliament, sexual orientation has been identified in EU law as grounds of discrimination.
In view of that, several interventions have been made to prohibit discrimination.
Considering these, it is highly unlikely for the EU Court of Justice to rule that homosexuality is not a human right issue as claimed by the Ghanaian legislator.
We have reached out to the European Court of Justice and will update this report should new evidence emerge.
Conclusion
We found no evidence that an EU Court has ruled that homosexuality is not a human right. It appears EU laws are rather being strengthened to protect the rights of LGBT+ people.
It is possible that the Ghanaian legislator, Sam George, was referring to the European Court of Human Rights ruling that the Austrian government did not violate the rights of two men when it denied them the rights to contract marriage.
This report was produced under the Dubawa Student Fact-checking Project aimed at offering students in tertiary schools aspiring to take up roles in the profession the opportunity to acquire real-world experience through verification and fact-checking.
Claim: Popular Ghanaian social commentator, Kwame Asare Obeng, well-known as Kwame A Plus, has shared a photo on Facebook, suggesting that it was taken in Accra in 1965.
View from above of a busy street in Nigeria with people cycling on the pavement. Nigeria (Photo by Mondadori via Getty Images)
Conclusion
The photo was taken in Nigeria and not Ghana as claimed by Kwame A Plus.
This report was produced under the Dubawa Student Fact-checking Project aimed at offering students in tertiary schools aspiring to take up roles in the profession the opportunity to acquire real-world experience through verification and fact-checking.
