The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) officially launched its investment summit dubbed, “Spark up”, on August 3, 2021, at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra.
The Chief Executive Officer of GIPC, Mr Yofi Grant, in his opening remarks said, among other things, that Ghana is the second country in Africa, following Egypt, to receive the highest foreign direct investment.
“…And for all our size and all that, we were the second-highest recipients of foreign direct investments in Africa after Egypt which is a much bigger economy, but on a per capita basis, Ghana is way ahead of all the other countries on the continent… As I said, in 2020, our FDI was 2.7 billion which is about a 140% increase of what we had recorded the preceding year in 2019 of $1.1 billion. The second half results this year is also extremely encouraging because, despite the fact that the pandemic has gone through a first wave, a second wave, and in some countries, a third wave, we have already been able to attract some over 830 million US dollars in foreign direct investments…” Mr Grant said between 23:30 minutes to 25:08 minutes into the video.
Defining FDI inflows and outflows
According to the World Bank, “FDI net inflows are the value of inward direct investment made by non-resident investors in the reporting economy…FDI net outflows are the value of outward direct investment made by the residents of the reporting economy to external economies. Outward direct investment is also called direct investment abroad.”
Now, we fact-check three claims identified in Mr Grant’s speech.
Claim 1: Ghana had the second-highest foreign direct investment in Africa, following Egypt in 2020.
According to the World Investment Report, 2021, South Africa recorded the second highest foreign direct investment in Africa for the year 2020.
As Mr Grant stated, Egypt retained its position as a leading receiver of FDI in Africa. It remains the highest receiver of FDI in Africa, despite a 16% decline in FDI to Africa in 2020, according to the World Investment Report, published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Coming in second after Egypt is South Africa who recorded $3.1 billion in FDIs in 2020 as indicated in the World Investment Report (pg 42). Some other African countries were able to attract noticeable FDI’s in 2020 with Ethiopia and Nigeria both coming in third with a recorded $2.4 billion in FDI. Mozambique also came in fourth with $2.3 billion in inflow.
Ghana, on the other hand, recorded $1.9 billion in FDI in 2020 according to the World Investment Report thus coming fifth in Africa.
Thus, South Africa, not Ghana, had the second-highest FDI inflow in Africa for the year 2020.
Claim 2: Ghana recorded $2.7 billion in FDI in the year 2020.
As stated in the World Investment Report, Ghana recorded $1.9 billion in FDI in 2020, not $2.7 billion as claimed by Mr Grant.
According to the World Investment Report (WIR) 2021 (pg. 41), published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in June 2021, Ghana recorded an FDI inflow of $1.9 billion in 2020, a 52% decline in the 2019 FDI of $3.9 billion.
This is contrary to the $2.7 billion stated by Mr Grant.
Dubawa contacted GIPC and was informed that the claim made by the CEO, Mr Grant, was right. We were referred to the GIPC Full Year 2020 report as proof.
The report sourced information from the World Investment Report (WIR) as did Dubawa. However, we found that the data presented in the GIPC report was slightly different from the WIR’s sourced from the UNCTAD website.
Paragraph two of the report states that Ghana came in third in 2020, following Egypt and Nigeria who recorded FDI of $5.5 billion and $2.66 billion respectively. The paragraph is in itself contrary to what was stated by Mr Grant at the Spark up workshop, where he stated that Ghana was second and not third.
Contrarily, pages 40 and 41 of the WRI indicates that Egypt recorded $5.9 billion in FDI while Nigeria recorded $2.4 billion and Ghana, $1.9 billion all in 2020.
Dubawa has reached out to the World Bank to corroborate the claims but is yet to receive feedback from the organisation regarding FDI in Africa, especially Ghana, for the year 2020.
Claim 3: Ghana recorded $1.1 billion in FDI in 2019
According to the 2020 World Investment Report and data from the World Bank, Ghana recorded approximately $3.9 billion in FDI for the year 2019.
In 2019, Ghana recorded approximately $3.9 billion in FDIs as indicated by the World Bank and the World Investment Report 2020.
Ghana’s FDI for 2019 was much higher than the $1.1 billion claimed by Mr Grant.
Conclusion
Although Ghana has performed remarkably well, considering the pandemic and its related effects on the economy, the country did not record the second-highest FDI inflow in Africa. Additionally, Ghana did not record $1.1 billion and $2.7 billion in FDI for the years 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Hmmm. Why would Senior officers be deceiving the public?