On January 7, 2025, president-elect John Dramani Mahama was sworn in as the sixth president under the Fourth Republican Constitution.

The days and weeks that followed January 7, saw a raft of announcements from the presidency, making the infamous green letter by Secretary to President, Callistus Mahama, a mainstay on social media because it bore a termination of appointment and or an appointment.

In the wake of the appointments comes a controversy about the new Managing Director for the ailing Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) widely reported in the media.

According to the reports shared on January 27, 2025,  which conspicuously did not state any source or refer to any communication,  Edmond Kombat, had been appointed acting Managing Director of TOR.

Weeks later, TOR formally announced Yussif Sulemana as the new MD who had taken over from the one appointed by the previous government and not Edmond Kombat as previously reported. 

This report delves into the genesis of the appointment that never was, and how media portals treated their reportage concerning the two separate incidents.

The genesis – a Facebook post

GhanaFact’s analysis of posts about Kombat’s appointment pointed to a post by Kampi Laari Robert with records showing as the first author to share the information on Facebook.

Fig 1 – The first post announcing Kombat’s appointment per GhanaFact tracking

His post was made at 11:13 AM, it had a picture of Edmond Kombat with a caption that read: “CEO OF TOR. Tema Oil Refinery. CONGRATULATIONS SIR. WE ARE PROUD OF YOU. GOD DID!” 

As of the time of writing this report, the post had attracted 240 reactions, 89 comments and two shares.

After his post, several other accounts shared a broader write-up on the appointment even though none cited a source. The post only claimed President John Dramani Mahama had appointed Kombat to the role.

One prominent account that shared the news was Edem Agbana, Member of Parliament for Ketu North, his post attracted a lot of interaction even though it was posted at 11:43, half an hour after the initial post per our tracking. The post had attracted 3,300 reactions, 546 comments and 93 shares as of the time the report was filed.

Fig 2 – Facebook post on the false appointment as shared by MP for Ketu North

The MP has yet to respond to our questions on the source of the information that led to his post and what becomes of his misleading post.

Wide media coverage – deletion, replacement and live pages

Despite no official confirmation of the acclaimed appointment, over a dozen media outlets carried the story. Most of them highlighted the appointment, touched on the centrality of TOR and reproduced a profile of the “new Acting MD.”

Among others, Citi Newsroom (now deleted), 3news.com, Modern Ghana, GhanaWeb and GBC Online, published stories on the matter. GhanaFact also found a dead link through their flyer on the appointment, which had a QR code that confirmed the deletion.

Meanwhile, other news outlets, including Asaase Radio, Hello FM, Peace FM, UTV, Akoma FM, and Abeiku Santana TV posted flyers on social media.

In the case of 3news.com, the URL and the content of the initial story (January 27) were replaced with the announcement of February 10, 2025, by TOR of the new MD in the person of Yussif Sulemana. Both links now lead to the same story.

Fig 3 – Posts by 3news.com on TOR MD announcements 

GhanaFact through archival tools found an archived page of the initial story in which the portal assigned a quote to Kombat. 

“I am honored to be entrusted with the responsibility of leading TOR at this critical juncture,” said Kombat. “I am confident that, working together with the dedicated team at TOR, we can restore the refinery to its former glory and ensure it plays a vital role in meeting Ghana’s energy needs.”

The link to the story above archived now leads to the story of TOR announcing its new MD, which essentially means two links that have been merged. 

Fig 4 – 3news.com publications after Google search on new TOR MD

The other outlets like GhanaWeb, Modern Ghana and GBC Online still have their links live. It is worthy of note that GhanaWeb has since published the February 10 appointment of Dr. Sulemana as the new Acting MD.

“I realized that Kombat was getting a lot of congratulatory messages on Facebook, it was the main trigger for me to work on the story. As you well know, we are in the appointment season so I ran just one check and my source confirmed,” one of the journalists who published the news told GhanaFact on condition of anonymity.

TOR announces formal handing over

On February 10, TOR published on the news section of their website, the formal handing over ceremony from the outgone MD to Dr. Yussif Sulemana, the new Acting MD. 

GhanaFact, on February 11, reached out to Kombat via Facebook Messenger on whether he had at any point been appointed to the position and if a reversal had ensued in the wake of Sulemana’s appointment. He has yet to respond to our message.

However, on February 11, Kombat posted a statement on his Facebook page thanking President Mahama for appointing him a deputy MD at TOR. 

TOR has subsequently published an announcement of his appointment: “Tema Oil Refinery is excited to announce and extend a warm welcome to Mr. Edmond Kombat as he joins the TOR team as Deputy Managing Director. He joins to assist Dr. Yussif Sulemana and management in strategizing the affairs of TOR and getting TOR back on track and revival,” the announcement read.

Fig 5 – TOR’s announcement of new MD and Deputy MD on News section of their website

GJA code of ethics breached

A number of provisions under the Code of Ethics of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) have been breached by how some media houses published the news. Three provisions stand out: That the journalist 

  • Makes adequate enquiries and cross-checks his/her facts.
  • Makes and verifies the source of every information.
  • Corrects inaccuracies and mistakes at the earliest opportunity and offers a chance for a rejoinder and/or an apology as appropriate

The third provision referenced above requires the media house to correct the mistakes instead of deleting them like Citi FM did or replacing them as TV3 did. The standard practice we have observed especially with social media posts is to explain the mistake to the audience and announce a deletion of the content.

A media ethics proponent says it is incumbent on the media to admit their shortcomings on issues like this, stressing that when painstaking efforts have to be made to discover some of these actions, it sets in motion a credibility crisis for media houses.

Researched by Alfa Shaban