A Facebook post shared in two New Patriotic Party (NPP) campaign groups that have a combined following of over 500,000; 4 MORE 4 NANA 2 DO MORE and PRESIDENT NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO ADDO claim that Ghana has been mentioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) as being the second best country in the world after Germany in terms of efficiency in management of COVID-19 cases.
The post has attracted more than 170 comments and shared over 50 times.
Fact-checkghana.com looked into the claim and found it to be completely false.
Explanation: Ghana recorded its first case of COVID-19 on 12th March 2020. Since then, the country’s case count continues to increase with the Ghana Health Service being the main government agency dealing with the country’s case count and management.
Due to the gravity of the effects of COVID-19 on the Ghanaian society and economy, it has become a major topic in the local media, attracting commentary from political figures and health experts.
With the country’s president assuming full responsibility for all the national decisions taken with regards to the management of the situation, he has been the target for a number of political statement especially from opposition party leaders who accuse him of poorly managing the outbreak.
As members of the governing party continue to project the government’s decisions as the best, and seek ways of shaming opposition members critical of the government’s decisions, there are high tendencies of clinging to false information to confirm their biases.
Concerning the claim that the WHO rates Ghana as second to Germany in terms of the country’s efficiently managing the COVID-19 outbreak in the world, fact-checkghana.com visited the official WHO website to access the article that suggested the claim.
On the WHO’s COVID-19 update portal, we found nothing of the sort.
We went further to run a simple Google search to find the possible source of the information.
We found one result which is a news publication by RealGistGhana.com which reported that the Member of Parliament for Assin South Constituency in the Central Region, Rev. John Ntim fordjour had made that statement on a news analysis show on Citi TV on Saturday, May 30, 2020.
We accessed the video footage of the show and highlighted Mr. Ntim Fordjour’s comments. [9.04 minutes to 10 minutess].
The legislator on the show said; ” When it comes to Germany, Germany currently has 138,000 cases and 8,500 deaths but the Chancellor has ensured that restrictions have been eased. As we speak, they are even playing the Bundesliga under very strict guidelines…. The Germans have been absolutely efficient with this…. When you mention Germany, the next probable country that comes into mind in terms of efficiency in managing COVID-19 is Ghana and that is the fact that we must acknowledge. We must not be pessimistic about the efforts. ”
More than 12,000 people have viewed that video so far.
While the statement made by the Member of Parliament is his personal opinion, it seems to have been taken by some members of the public as a fact, which some have attributed to the W.H.O.
The W.H.O has no ranking of countries’ performances on Covid-19. Therefore, Fact-checkghana.com can state that the W.H.O. has not named Ghana the second most efficient country after Germany in the management of COVID-19.
