NDC

In the recently aired Alhaji and Alhaji political show on 12 September 2020,  two invited panellists on the show, Kojo Twum Boafo and Kamal-Deen Abdulai, were heard debating a claim. 

Boafo, who is the former CEO of Free Zones Authority and affiliated with the National Democratic Congress (NDC), was heard asserting that President Akufo-Addo promised to build 350 schools when he was a presidential candidate. Boafo was supported by another panellist, Gabriella Tetteh, a member of the NDC Communication Team, who was also heard claiming that this promise was stated in the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) 2016 Manifesto.

However, both claims by Boafo and Tetteh were contested by Abdulai, the Deputy Director of Communications of the NPP, who indicated that Akufo-Addo made no such promises. 

A transcription of the trilogue is captured below:

Boafo: “The president when he was a candidate said ‘Mahama said he’s built 200, I will build 350’ (translated from Twi) and today when you ask them where the 350 are, they tell you they painted classrooms”

Abdulai: “Kojo! Where?”

Tetteh: “Your 2016 manifesto said you were going to build 350 schools… You’ve forgotten?” 

Abdulai: “Oh no no no no!”

Claim: Akufo-Addo, as a presidential candidate, said he will build 350 schools

Verdict: In 2012, Akufo-Addo, as the NPP presidential candidate, said in an address to UDS tertiary students association of the party in Navrongo that the first 18 months of the next NPP government would involve the building of 350 new Senior High Schools from scratch. 

A 2-minute 23-second video news report published by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) on 4 December 2012 confirms Boafo’s assertion as true. 

In the video, Akufo-Addo, who was the NPP 2012 presidential candidate was heard making commitments of building a new society of job creation in his address to the NPP tertiary students association of the University for Development Studies (UDS) Navrongo campus.  

“We plan a rapid and vigorous development of educational infrastructure in the first 18 months of the next NPP government. This would involve the building of 350 new senior high schools from scratch while rehabilitating and expanding existing ones,” Akufo-Addo said.

Again in 2016, a news report by JoyFM on 7 March 2016 shows that the former NPP Communications Director, Nana Akomea, mentioned that the NPP had a strategy to make this promise a reality.

“This whole idea of John Mahama saying I will build 200 schools was in reaction to Nana Addo’s plan to build 350-day schools as part of the free SHS agenda. So John Mahama also brought this thing that I am also going to build schools, it wasn’t part of their initial plan,” Nana Akomea said.

Claim: Akufo-Addo’s promise of building 350 schools is stated in the NPP 2016 manifesto

Verdict: There is no promise of the building of 350 new schools in the NPP 2016 manifesto nor in the NPP 2012 manifesto.

Contrary to Gabriella Tetteh’s claim that Akufo-Addo and the NPP’s promise of building new schools is stated in the NPP 2016 manifesto, there is no evidence of such promises by the NPP in the entire NPP 2016 Manifesto. There are no such promises found either under the infrastructure nor under education policies in the manifesto. 

Furthermore, since Akufo-Addo mentioned this promise in 2012 in his address at UDS, one would assume that perhaps it might be stated in the NPP 2012 Manifesto; however, there is also no such promise stated in the entire  NPP 2012 Manifesto. 

Conclusion

The claim by both Boafo and Tetteh that Akufo-Addo promised to build 350 schools is true. Akufo Addo said this in 2012 as the NPP flagbearer while addressing the NPP tertiary students association at the UDS Navrongo campus. But there is no such promise stated in the 2016 NPP manifesto as Tetteh has claimed. It is also not found in the 2012 NPP manifesto. 

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), On September 8th, 2020, launched its 2020 manifesto titled, “Jobs, Prosperity, and More. The People’s Manifesto.”

The Vice Presidential candidate of the party, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, in her opening remarks made some claims regarding the 2020 elections and elections in Ghana in general. 

“Today is September 7th and we are exactly three months away from the 2020 presidential and parliamentary election. This election will be historic in many ways. It will be the first time that such an election has been conducted in the midst of a global pandemic. It will be decided by the largest electorates in the nation’s history. It will be the first in the fourth republic to be contested by a former president and the first in which a major political party’s ticket will feature a woman…This will be the youngest electorate in the history of this nation. Seven out of every ten people who registered to cast a ballot December 7th were born a decade before the fourth republic. Nearly half of them have only ever known Ghana as a multi-party democracy,” Prof Opoku-Agyemang said (2:48:40 to 2:50:54).

Dubawa examined three main claims made by Prof Opoku-Agyemang in her address.

‘This is the first time in the fourth republic that a former president is contesting for the seat of the president.‘

President John Mahama is the first former president to contest for the seat of President in the fourth republic of Ghana.

The 1992 Constitution came into full force in 1993, marking the beginning of the fourth republic.

And since 1992, Ghana has had five (5) presidents:

1. Jerry John Rawlings
2. John Agyemkum Kuffour
3. John Evans Atta Mills
4. John Dramani Mahama
5. Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo

Of this five, John Mahama is the only one to have lost power and to again contest for the presidential seat.

President	Term	Political party
Jerry John Rawlings	1992 – 2000	NDC
John Agyekum Kufuor	2000 – 2008	NPP
John Evans Atta Mills	2008 – 2012	NDC
John Dramani Mahama	2012 – 2016	NDC
Nana Akufo-Addo	2016 – to date	NPP

This is the first election in Ghana in which a major party’s ticket will feature a woman.

As checked by Dubawa, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang is indeed the first female vice-presidential candidate of a major political party in Ghana.

Although there have been a number of female vice-presidential candidates in Ghana over the years, those parties are largely not considered major political parties in the country. 

In 2012, three female vice-presidential candidates were nominated during in the presidential and parliamentary elections. They are Madam Helen Matervi of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Eva Lokko of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), and Madam Nana Akosua Frimpomaa II for the Convention People’s Party (CPP). 

These parties as earlier stated, are, however, not considered to be major political parties even though Ghana has been a multi-party political system. Only the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party(NPP) have amassed the highest number of votes in the elections held. 

A previous fact-check by Dubawa confirmed this. 

The 2020 elections will be decided by the largest electorates in the nation’s history.

Based on the information available, this new voters register has the largest number of registered voters in the country’s history.

Information available on the Electoral Commission (EC) website indicates 16,845,439 voters have been registered. This figure is subject to change depending on the outcome of the upcoming Voters Register Exhibition which is scheduled to begin from September 18th, 2020. 

In a Facebook live stream held on August 12, to inform the media and the public about notable statistics recorded during the 2020 voters registration compilation, the EC Chairperson, Jean Adukwei Mensa, had announced that the Commission had recorded a total of 16,963,306 eligible voters. This was a provisional figure and was subject to change based on the resolution of challenges reported during the registration exercise. 

The table below shows a list of elections held in Ghana’s history from the year 1957 to 2016 and the yet to be held 2020 elections.

S/No	Year	Election Type	Number of registered voters
1	February 1951	Legislative Assembly Election	n/a
2	15 June 1954	Legislative Assembly Election	n/a
3	17 July 1956	Legislative Assembly Election	1,392,874
4	27 April 1960	Plebiscite	2,098,651
5	27 April 1960	Presidential Election	2,098,651
6	31 January 1964	Constitutional Referendum	n/a
7	29 August 1969	National Assembly Election	2,360,000 (approx.)
8	30 March 1978	Referendum	4,497,803
9	June 1979	Presidential Election	5,000,000 (approx.)
10	18 June 1979	National Assembly Election	8,255,690
11	3 November 1992	Presidential Election	8,229,902
12	29 December 1992	Parliamentary Election	7,336,846
13	7 December 1996	Presidential Election	9,279,605
14	7th / 28th December 2000	General Elections	10,698,652
15	7 December 2004	General Elections	10,354,970
16	7th and 28th December 2008	General Elections	12,472,758
17	2012	General Elections	14, 03,793
18	2016	General Elections	15, 712,505
19	2020 (Yet to be held)	General Elections	16,845,439

The running mate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Professor Jane Nana Opoku-Agyemang, claims that there is a daycare centre at the new Kotokuraba market.

There is currently no daycare centre in the new Kotokuraba market. The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly (CCMA), Richmond Yeboah, said the plan to have a daycare centre in the market was changed at the initial stages of its construction.

Full Text

Responding to a question on the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) plans for improving social support for vulnerable groups and women at a gathering to mark International Youth Day, the running mate of the opposition NDC,  Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, claimed that the new Kotokuraba market in Cape Coast had a daycare centre in it (11:00 – 13:00).

“It was during the time of John Evans Atta Mills that the Kotokuraba market was initiated. It was completed by John Mahama and there is a daycare in that place,” she said while indicating that the NDC had put in place policies that demonstrated care for women and vulnerable groups.

The Kotokuraba market was built and commissioned by former President  John  Mahama in 2016. 

 Verification

To verify the claim, this reporter visited the Kotokuraba market to check if there is a daycare facility there. 

The market has 246 lockable shops, 496 stalls, 26 supermarkets, two banks, 14 office spaces, fire station, butchery, cold store, warehouse, and two-level car parks with a total of 188 parking lots. This reporter did not see a daycare centre at the market.

We also spoke to some traders in the market on the issue. All the traders we spoke to said they were not aware of the existence of a daycare centre in the market.

“If there is anything like that, then I am yet to know where it is located in the market,” said Emelia Baidoo of store number AGS43.   

We further spoke to Mr Yeboah, the public relations officer of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly (CCMA), managers of the market, who confirmed that the market in its current state has no daycare facility.

According to him, although it was part of the initial plan to have a daycare centre in the market, the plan was altered at the initial stage of construction of the market.

“When the market was handed over to us, that plan had been altered. It changed initially when they realised the number of stores did not correlate to the number of registered market traders.”

Conclusion

Based on the information gathered from a physical inspection of the market and speaking to the relevant bodies, it is evident that there is no daycare centre at the new Kotokuraba market at the moment. Though the initial plan was to have a daycare facility at the market, that plan never materialised.

The reporter produced this fact-check under the auspices of the Dubawa 2020 Fellowship to facilitate the ethos of “truth” in journalism and to enhance media literacy in the country.  

Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, claims opposition NDC cancelled book and research allowance before leaving office.

The NDC did not cancel the book and research allowance. There is evidence of continuous payment of the allowance throughout the NDC’s administration until it lost power in December 2016. 

Full text 

Ghana’s Minister for Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh,  on Tuesday, August 12, while speaking in Parliament, claimed that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government cancelled the Book & Research Allowance for tertiary institution lecturers. 

He said it took the Akufo-Addo government’s coming into office to restore the allowance and also increase it from GHS500 to GHS 1,500. 

“Mr Speaker, the Book & Research Allowance which was abolished by the NDC government, has been restored by this government. We have not only restored it but we have approved a 200% increase in the allowance, from the GHS500 to GHS 1,500,” the minister said. 

But the Ranking Member for the Education Committee in Parliament and MP for Akatsi North constituency, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, challenged the claim, insisting that the NDC government never scrapped the allowance. 

“There is record to show that the Ministry of Finance in 2016 paid Book and Research allowance to lecturers and affiliated workers in tertiary institutions in this country,” Peter Nortsu Kotoe said. 

The NDC government was in power from 2008 to 2016.

Verification

Few days to the presentation of the 2014 budget in parliament in November 2013, the Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), Professor Mahama Duwieju, revealed at a public lecture organized by the Association of African Universities (AAU) that the NCTE was working with the Ministry of Education and the various public universities to establish a research fund. 

In that budget presented by the then Finance Minister, Seth Tekper, the government announced that it had decided to replace the payment system for the Book and Research allowance with a research facility. 

The matter generated controversy with some tertiary teacher unions protesting against the envisaged cancellation of the Book and Research allowance which they believed was going to be replaced with the proposed research fund announced in the budget.  

In the 2015 budget, Seth Tekper indicated that a draft Bill for the research fund was undergoing stakeholders’ consultation and review. 

As at November 2016, the research fund which was envisaged to replace the Book and Research allowance was yet to be laid before parliament. 

During that period, the NDC government was still paying the Book and Research allowance in its regular form. Publications on Citifmonline.com and Graphic.com.gh confirmed payments for the 2014/2015, 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 academic years.

A recent report found a letter from the Ministry of Finance authorizing payment for the Book and Research allowance in 2016, the year the NDC government lost power.

When we followed up with a phone call to the 2015–2017 National President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Dr Harry Agbanu, he said the allowance was never cancelled during the NDC administration. 

“It wasn’t cancelled. There was the intention of the NDC government to cancel that and we protested. There were discussions to that effect but it was never cancelled. They paid the last book and research allowance to us before they left [office in 2016].”

Conclusion

Based on the evidence above, we conclude that the NDC at no point during its administration cancelled the Book and Research allowance although it had considered reviewing the system of payment to be replaced with the Tertiary Education Research Fund. 

–

The reporter produced this fact-check under the auspices of the Dubawa 2020 Fellowship in partnership with Citinewsroom to facilitate the ethos of “truth” in journalism and to enhance media literacy in the country.  

A leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Gabby Otchere-Darko, claims that Ghana experienced major power outages, ‘dumsor’ in 2016 and that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government published a power rationing schedule to that effect.

There were major power outages in Ghana in 2016 but we found no evidence to suggest that a load-shedding schedule was published that year as suggested by Mr Otchere-Darko. The photo attached to the tweet was denied by the Electricity Company of Ghana as originating from them when it surfaced in 2016.

Full text: 

Ghana’s recent history includes battling serious energy crisis that saw intermittent power cuts popularly known as ‘dumsor.’

Ghana, during the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Mahama administration, saw publications of power outage schedules to indicate rationing of power in the country. 

The development has remained a major area of controversy between the opposition NDC and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP). 

A leading member of the NPP, Mr  Otchere-Darko via his Twitter page on Sunday, August 2, 2020, made a post in which he claimed that power outages during the Mahama era extended from 2011 when he was Vice President to 2016 when the former president was voted out of power. 

Mr Otchere-Darko accompanied his post with a photo of one of the purported publications on power rationing schedule [for August 1, 2016, to August 14, 2016] to prove that the power rationing extended to 2016. 

The post has so far received over 1,000 reactions on Twitter.

A Deputy Minister for Power during Mahama’s administration, John Jinapor, in a counterclaim, challenged Mr Otchere-Darko’s position in a statement where he said: “there was no load shedding schedule published in the whole of 2016.”

Dubawa looked into the claims.

Verification: 

Gabby Otchere-Darko’s ‘dumsor’ schedule

In verifying the image shared by Mr Otchere-Darko as the supposed power rationing schedule published by the government in 2016, we conducted a reverse image search whose results showed a variation of the image tweeted by Mr Otchere-Darko. 

The variant image, which is of much better quality, had the exact information (except the dates) and its text positioned in the same way as those in the photo tweeted by Mr Otchere-Darko. 

The variant was seen on document-archiving site VDocuments on October 16. 2015. That image bears the date of a load-shedding exercise that was planned for March 17, 2014, to March 30, 2014. 

Graphic Online also published that same schedule on its website on March 19, 2014.  

See the difference below:

Our further checks revealed that the Electricity Company of Ghana in a statement on July 23, 2016, indicated that the supposed load-shedding schedule for August 1 to August 14 that had been widely circulated at the time was fake. 

The statement was also shared on ECG’s official twitter handle. 

The same disclaimer was published by Yen.com.gh. 

We, therefore, conclude that the supposed 2016 load-shedding schedule tweeted by Mr. Otchere-Darko is fake and false. 

‘Dumsor’ In 2016?

A series of Google searches conducted revealed that there were a number of extensive power outages experienced in the country in 2016 with areas such as Dansoman, Awoshie, Achimota, Taifa, and Kasoa mentioned as some of the areas most affected. 

According to Daily Graphic, President John Mahama at a meeting with the Council of Christian Churches in Kumasi on Thursday, June 30, 2016, admitted that the country was having a power challenge. 

“He said the crisis appeared to have been prolonged by the non-supply of gas from neighbouring Nigeria to feed thermal plants as a result of sabotage which led to the shutdown of the Asogli power plant…. President Mahama who was on his final leg accounting to the people’s tour of the Ashanti region expressed the hope that there would be more rains to increase the water levels of the Akosombo dam to improve hydro power to augment thermal production. Currently, Akosombo was operating below its minimum capacity of 240 feet but President Mahama was optimistic the situation will improve.” — Excerpts of Graphic’s report read. 

A publication on Peacefmonline sourced from Classfmonline in July 2016 also revealed how there were calls on the government and the Public Utilities and Regulatory Commission (PURC) by the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) to publish a load-shedding schedule to help residents plan their activities accordingly.

The then opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), also issued a statement demanding a load-shedding schedule from the government but the Head of Public Affairs at the PURC, Nana Yaa Juantuah, in a response captured in a Citi FM report said the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) could not release a load shedding timetable because the erratic power supply  at the time was only a temporary problem.

Three weeks earlier on Wednesday, July 6, 2016, President Mahama, while delivering an address at that year’s Eid Celebrations at the Independence Square in Accra, said he would not declare a load-shedding because he was confident things would normalize soon. 

“We are not declaring load shedding; I believe things will normalize but we are taking steps every day to ensure that Ghana has security when it comes to power…Because of sabotage in Nigeria on the terminals, crude oil that we ordered last month has not arrived and so it has created some generational problems for us,” he was quoted to have said. 

The Deputy Minister for Power at the time, Mr Jinapor, in an interview on the Joy Super Morning Show on October 26, 2016, admitted that the country was having power challenges, confessing that “money has been one of the challenges” in fixing the issue. 

Conclusion

Based on the evidence above, we find that although there was a major power issue in 2016, the government did not formally declare it as a power crisis and was hesitant in releasing a power rationing schedule. 

Indeed, there is no evidence of any official power rationing schedule. The ECG denied photo which was shared by Mr Otchere-Darko when it surfaced in the public domain.

The reporter produced this fact-check under the auspices of the Dubawa 2020 Fellowship in partnership with Citinewsroom to facilitate the ethos of “truth” in journalism and to enhance media literacy in the country.  

John Dramani Mahama is a former president of Ghana and the flagbearer of the largest opposition political party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in the 2020 presidential elections with Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman as his running mate.

His political journey began when he contested elections to represent the Bole-Bamboi constituency in the 1996 elections and stayed in office as a legislator for eight years (1996-2000 and 2000-2004).

He was appointed Deputy Communications Minister in 1997  by the Jerry Rawlings administration. He went on to become the Minister of Communications from 1998 to 2001 under the same Rawlings administration. He also served as the Chairman for the National Communications Authority during his time as minister.

From 2001 to 2005, Mahama was the Minority Parliamentary Spokesperson for Communication and continued to become the Minority parliamentary spokesperson for Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2008.  

John Mahama was nominated as the running mate for the late former President John Evans Atta Mills in the 2008 general election, becoming Vice president on January 7, 2009. 

Following the death of Atta Mills on July 24, 2012, Mahama was sworn in as President of Ghana. In December of the same year, he was elected President until 2016 when he lost power to President Nana Akufo-Addo.

He was born to politician father Emmanuel Adama Mahama, who was a member of Parliament for Gonja West Constituency. His father was also, under the leadership of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first Regional Commissioner of the Northern Region.

John Mahama received his primary school education from Achimota Basic school after which he moved to Ghana Secondary School in Tamale.

After gaining a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in History at the University of Ghana in 1981, Mahama began a career in teaching back at Ghana Secondary School.  

In 1986, John Mahama graduated with a postgraduate diploma in Communication Studies from the University of Ghana. He again pursued another postgraduate degree in Social Psychology in 1988 in Moscow at the Institute of Social Sciences.

Upon his return to Ghana, he worked at the Embassy of Japan as Information, Culture and Research Officer until 1995. Following this, he worked as the International Relations, Sponsorship, Communication, and Grants Manager at the Ghana Office of the Plan International. 

John Mahama is the author of ‘My First Coup d’Etat: Memories From the Lost Decades of Africa’, which was published in July 2012. He has also published some essays in the Huffington Post, New York Times, and others.

John Mahama is married to Lordina Mahama.

Yaw Buaben Asamoa, Communications Director of the NPP, claimed Ghana ranked last in the PISA 2013 test. 

Ghana has neither participated in nor been ranked in PISA since the programme started. PISA is triennial and is released every three years since the first one in 2000. There was no PISA test for 2013 and therefore Ghana could not have ranked last in a report that does not exist.  

Full Text

On Monday, July 6, the National Executive Committee of the largest opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), unanimously approved Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as the running mate for NDC flag bearer, John Mahama, for the 2020 presidential election. 

On that same day, hours after the official announcement, Communications Director of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Yaw Buaben Asamoa, addressed a press conference at the NPP campaign office at Kokomlemle where he put out the party’s reaction to the selection of the NDC running mate. Among the commentary he made, Buaben Asamoa claimed that Ghana placed last in the 2013 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). 

“In 2013 when Ghana was ranked last in PISA, she run away from the competition where Ghana could have taken the opportunity to roll out robust reforms in dealing with our educational challenges as a nation, yet she preferred not to be ranked at all”- Yaw Buaben Asamoa, of the NPP said.

About PISA

PISA is a programme developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for assessment of students. PISA is an acronym that stands for “Programme for International Student Assessment”. According to OECD, PISA measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. 

PISA is “not only the world’s most comprehensive and reliable indicator of students’ capabilities, it is also a powerful tool that countries and economies can use to fine-tune their education policies…to share evidence of the best policies and practices, and to offer timely and targeted support to help countries provide the best education possible” (Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General in PISA 2018; Insights and interpretations).

Countries volunteer to participate in PISA and once the PISA board approves the country, individual schools are chosen based on stringent criteria to represent all 15-year-old students in that country. The students are randomly chosen from among all 15-year-olds enrolled in grade seven or higher.

Verification

A thorough website search conducted showed that Ghana is not listed as one of the over 90 countries and economies that have participated in PISA tests since the year 2000. 

On the official website, the OECD states that PISA is a triennial test that is taken once every three years. The programme began in 2000 and every three years since, results have been announced. This means that since the year 2000, there have been seven PISA tests taken in 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2018. 

From this, it is clear that there was no PISA test for 2013. Ghana could therefore not have been ranked first of all, let alone be ranked last in a test that was never conducted.

Verifying further, we did a Google search to identify online portals which published the news item about the claim in question. The search yielded no result pertaining to Ghana ranking last in the PISA 2013 test. None of the state publications and websites of the mainstream media in the country published a story to that effect. There is no documented evidence that points to the claim that Ghana ranked last in PISA 2013.

However, the Google search produced results of publications relating to another ranking done by the OECD. 

The Global School Ranking, touted as the biggest ever of such rankings, was released in May 2015 and was based on test scores in 76 countries. It showed the link between education and economic growth. OECD’s education director, Andreas Schleicher, is quoted to have said while commenting on the report in 2015 that the ranking was the “first time we have a truly global scale of the quality of education” and that the idea is to “give more countries, rich and poor, access to comparing themselves against the world’s education leaders, to discover their relative strengths and weaknesses, and to see what the long-term economic gains from improved quality in schooling could be for them” 

Asia’s Singapore came tops in the ranking while Ghana ranked last in the 76^th position.

In spite of the fact that the Global School Ranking was done by the OECD, the analysis provided a much wider global map of education standards than the PISA tests, which focused on more affluent industrialized countries. According to the BBC, the rankings “were based on an amalgamation of international assessments, including the OECD’s PISA tests, the TIMSS tests run by US-based academics, and TERCE tests in Latin America” 

Then Education Minister Prof. Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman reacted to the ranking by saying that the data used to determine Ghana’s position in the Global School Ranking were from the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), noting that the ranking raised “ a number of concerns”. 

Conclusion

The claim by Communications Director of the governing NPP, Yaw Buaben Asamoa, that Ghana ranked last in PISA 2013 is not true. There was no PISA test done that year and according to the OECD website, Ghana has not participated in any PISA test since its inception. The country is not included in the list of countries and economies that have been involved in PISA.  Indeed, Ghana came last in a ranking done by the OECD but that ranking was the Global School Ranking and was done in 2015 and not 2013. 

 Prof. Opoku-Agyemang is the first female running mate of a major political party in Ghana.

Although over the years, there have been a number of female running mates for other political parties in Ghana, those parties were not considered major political parties in Ghana. The NDC has since 1992 been considered one of the two leading political parties in Ghana, and prior to the announcement of Prof. Opoku-Agyemang’s candidacy, the party has announced only male running mates for the presidential elections.

Full text

On 6 July 2020, the presidential candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), former president John Mahama, announced his running mate for the upcoming December 2020 elections to be  Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang. Following Mahama’s announcement, some international news stories, here, and here have highlighted that Prof. Opoku-Agyemang is the first female vice-presidential candidate for a major political party in Ghana. 

Some Ghanaian Twitter users have further suggested that other political parties who have had female vice-presidential candidates prior to Prof. Opoku-Agyemang’s candidacy are however not considered as major political parties in Ghana.

https://twitter.com/BBSimons/status/1280245055467532296

Verification:

In a compilation by some Ghanaian media here and here, the history of Ghanaian politics shows that Prof Opoku-Agyemang is certainly not the first female vice-presidential candidate to be announced over the years of constitutional rule in Ghana. 

Particularly for the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections, the polls witnessed three female vice-presidential candidates in the persons of Eva Lokko for the Progressive People’s Party (PPP),  Helen Matervi for the People’s National Convention (PNC), and Nana Akosua Frimpomaa II also known as Cherita Sarpong for the Convention People’s Party (CPP).

The parties considered to be major political parties in Ghana

The National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are the political parties in Ghana popularly described as the two leading political parties, or the two major political parties in Ghana. 

Since the 1992 Constitution, Ghana has had a multi-party political system, yet the NDC and the NPP political parties have notably amassed the highest votes among Ghanaian voters in presidential and parliamentary elections, and have remained the two main competing and formidable parties in the Ghanaian political landscape till date.

However, unlike other political parties in previous election years, none of these two leading parties had announced the candidacy of a female running mate till the NDC announced Prof. Opoku-Agyeman for the 2020 elections, thereby, making her the first female vice-presidential candidate of a major political party in Ghana.

Conclusion

The claim that Prof Opoku-Agyemang is the first female running mate for a major political party in Ghana is true. Although there have been a number of female running mates for other political parties in Ghana over the years, those parties are not largely considered as major political parties in the country. 

The party Prof Opoku-Agyemang is running for, the NDC, has since 1992 been considered one of the two leading political parties in Ghana, and prior to the announcement of her candidacy, the party have had only male running mates for the presidential elections.