Claim: Okudzeto Ablakwa criticises President Mahama over COVID Levy promise.
Source: Social Media (Facebook)
Verdict: Misleading
Researched by Nusrat Essah
A 25-second video circulating on Facebook claims that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has criticised President John Dramani Mahama for failing to scrap the COVID levy as promised in his election campaigns.
Among those amplifying the video was Akbar Yussif Rohullah Khomeini, an aide to former Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia, who shared it on April 25, 2025, with the caption “Ablakwa attacks Mahama over COVID levy promise.”
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The video shows President Mahama, the then flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), at his 2024 manifesto launch saying: “We will scrap the following draconian taxes, to alleviate hardships and ease the high cost of doing business in our first 90 days in office, one, COVID levy.”
This is immediately followed by a clip of the Foreign Minister Okudzeto Ablakwa saying: “Another shameless, you know, lack of commitment to promises, to pledges, you make promises to keep them, not to break them, but to take the people for a ride because now you have what you want, but you forget that four years is such a short time.”
Fig. 1: Screenshot of Facebook post
GhanaFact identified other users on Facebook who have reposted the video with similar captions, creating the impression that the minister is criticising the President who appointed him.
Fact-Check
GhanaFact has observed a trend of such edited videos targeting ministers, whose past and present positions on issues are juxtaposed, usually to discredit their personalities or the government.
On the claim of Ablakwa criticising President Mahama over the COVID levy promise, GhanaFact traced the source of the video clip to a YouTube post by GhanaWeb in August 2017.
The original video, which is a minute and 20 seconds long shows Ablakwa, then-Ranking Member of the select committee on Foreign Affairs criticising the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) for failing to fulfil its campaign promises in Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s first year in office.
Fig 2: Screenshot of post on YouTube
In the full video, the minister could be heard saying: “It is just a case of lack of principle, and I think that the NPP is fast losing credibility. Many people are saying, really, so what was the change about? Why did we vote for them if they don’t stand for any principle… and it is not the first, we are seeing a major U-turn. They promised to pay all the DKM, God Is Love, the Ponzi scheme victims …
“When they came to power, they said… we didn’t say that, we don’t remember saying that. They promised that by June this year the One District, One Factory would have taken off. We are in August already, and nobody is even apologising to Ghanaians.
“Nobody is saying anything about it. They promised to pay all contractors… within the first hundred days. As we speak, the budget review that was read this week, the Ministry of Finance is now talking about 2019, that is when he hopes to clear all arrears.
“Another shameless, you know, lack of commitment to promises, to pledges, you make promises to keep them, not to break them, but to take the people for a ride because now you have what you want, but you forget that four years is such a short time,” he said.
The portion of the video where Ablakwa spoke about broken promises was cut out of context and attached to a separate clip of Mahama, making it appear as the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, is responding directly to President Mahama.
Therefore, the video suggesting the minister criticised President Mahama over the scrapping of COVID levy is misleading. The Mahama bit was taken from 2024 while Ablakwa’s clip was taken from a 2017 video where the minister was criticising the then-NPP government.
Verdict
The claim is rated Misleading
GhanaFact recently published a similar report on John Jinapor allegedly attacking President Mahama over utility tariffs.
