Claim: Ex-Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has alleged that the country’s financial support from the international community during the COVID-19 pandemic was GHȼ27 billion.
Verdict: False. DUBAWA’s probe showed that the West African country’s budgetary support from the international community during the COVID-19 pandemic was not GHȼ27 billion, as Mr Mahama alleged. The country’s Auditor-General noted that GH¢21,844,189,185.24 was mobilized to mitigate the impact of the pandemic in Ghana between 2020 and 2022.
Full Text
John Mahama, the 2024 Presidential candidate of Ghana’s opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has rejected the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP)‘s claim that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the country’s economy.
The NPP’s 2024 flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has said the fundamentals of Ghana’s economy were “stronger and better” before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War.
“Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the economic circumstances of virtually every country. Today, our economy is witnessing rising fuel prices, and virtually all commodities like bread, rice, sugar, sachet water, cement, iron rods, and so on,” the former Governor of the Bank of Ghana told a group of party supporters in 2020.
See page 7 of the statement Dr Bawumia presented here.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also confirmed the twin challenges negatively impacted Ghana’s economy.
“We recognize that we are in a world in which exogenous shocks more often than before, hit innocent bystanders. Ghana has been working toward good policies for quite some time, and then COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war hit, and that significantly undermined Ghana,” the IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, said.
Addressing scores of party supporters at Nkoranza South in the Bono East region on Sept. 6, 2024, the NDC’s 2024 flagbearer, John Mahama, said despite the many challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic was a blessing to Ghana.
“Let me tell you when COVID-19 came. It affected the whole world. It was a burden, but at a point, it became a blessing to us [Ghana]. During COVID, the World Bank, the IMF, and other countries gave us money. The money we received because of COVID-19 amounted to GHȼ27 billion,” the ex-Ghanaian leader, Mr Mahama, said in the Twi dialect.
Please see minutes 30:18 to 33:01 of the campaign rally shared on Facebook, where Mr Mahama made the claim.
Data on the social media platform showed as of Sept. 8, 2024, the video had recorded 118 comments, 77 shares, 542 likes, and over 33,234 views.
DUBAWA decided to investigate the claim as part of its campaign against misinformation and disinformation in Ghana.
Verification
DUBAWA’s research showed that the West African country’s budgetary support from the international community during the COVID-19 pandemic was not GHȼ27 billion, as Mr Mahama alleged.
Ghana’s Auditor-General has said that GH¢21,844,189,185.24 was mobilised between 2020 and 2022 to mitigate the impact of the pandemic in Ghana.
“We noted from our examination of the records that the amount of GH¢21,844,189,185.24 was sourced from the Contingency Fund, the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Union (EU) and the sale of BOG-COVID-19 Bonds for 2020, 2021 and 2022 Fiscal Years,” page 7 of the audit report on Ghana’s COVID-19 expenditure read.
See page 8 of the Audit report of Ghana’s COVID-19 transactions from March 2020 to June 2022 for the breakdown of financial support received.
Of the GH¢21,844,189,185.24, DUBAWA’s investigation revealed the World Bank and the IMF supported the West African country with GH¢1,978,483,194.02 and GH¢5,566,676,161.54 respectively.
Also, the European Union and the African Development Bank (AfDB) gave Ghana GH¢569,617,581.78 and GH¢398,745,781.93 respectively.
Other funds, including the Bank of Ghana COVID-19 bonds, brought the total financial support received to GH¢21,844,189,185.24, the audit report on Ghana’s COVID-19 expenditures from Mar. 2020 to June 2022 said.
Conclusion
Ex-Ghanaian President John Mahama’s claim that the country received GHȼ27 billion in financial support from the international community during the COVID-19 pandemic is not supported by the Auditor-General’s report into COVID-19 transactions.
