Claim: President Akufo-Addo accepts to debate John Mahama
Source: Unknown
Verdict: Fake
Researched by Sani Abdul-Rahman
A letter allegedly signed by the Director of Communications at Ghana‘s seat of government-Jubilee house and comes with the seal of the Presidency claims President Nana Akufo-Addo will honour an invitation to debate his predecessor on their respective administration’s records on infrastructure development
But GhanaFact checks show the letter is fake.
RelatedNews
The letter which is being circulated on social media is dated August 28 and comes with the headline- “President Akufo-Addo to debate Mahama”.
Debate Challenge
The leader of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama first called for the debate on August 20 when he addressed leaders of the Ho West Traditional Area during a tour of the Volta Region.
“After all, the President said it is going to be an election of track records; comparing his track record to my track record. We can settle it easily. Let’s have a debate between the two of us. The two presidents. Let Nana Akufo-Addo come and sit down. Let me sit down and let’s debate our records,” he said.
The engagement was live-streamed on John Mahama’s verified Facebook page and has 29,000 views with 1,200 comments at the time of publishing this report.
Gov’t infrastructure projects
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has been making a strong case for government’s investment in infrastructural development and why Ghanaians should renew their mandate in the upcoming December polls.
According to him, the government has initiated 17,334 infrastructure projects in various parts of the country, 8,746 of them have been completed while the remaining are ongoing and citizens can independently track the progress of work on a dedicated website.
Fact-check
Ghana’s Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and his deputy, Pius Enam Hadzide both labelled the letter as “fake” when contacted by GhanaFact.
Meanwhile attempts to reach the Director of Communications at the Jubilee House, Eugene Arhin proved futile.
Verdict
GhanaFact rates the claim as false and the letter as fake.
