The President highlighted the achievements of his government and their projected plans to execute before his term is over.
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Fact-checking Akufo-Addo’s State of the Nation Address
Following Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution, President Nana Akufo-Addo delivered the State Of the Nation Address to the Parliament of Ghana and by extension, Ghanaians.
Fact-checking Akufo-Addo’s State of the Nation Address
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Generally, some of the assertions made by the President are claims that have been made on various platforms either by himself, the Vice President, Dr Bawumia or other Ministers of State.
In this fact-check, Dubawa examines two of the claims. One was correct, the other, false.
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Claim 1: Ghana is the largest recipient of Foreign Direct Investment in West Africa.
Verdict: True; Ghana receives the largest FDI in West Africa, according to the UNCTAD World Investment Report.
Verification
The President has previously made this claim on other platforms including ta Press Briefing last December. President Akuffo-Addo also stated this during the 71 st New Year School held on Tuesday, January 14.
On June 12, last year, the UNCTAD World Investment Report named Ghana as the leading recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
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“Ghana became the largest FDI recipient in West Africa, even though FDI inflows decreased by 8 per cent to $3 billion,” page 37 of the report said.
Ghana takes over from Nigeria, which has had FDI flows declining by 43 per cent to $2 billion.
Claim 2: Even though the latest Ghana Living Standard Survey has recorded a drop in unemployment from 11.9% in 2015 to 7.3% in 2019, we still need to do more to create more jobs with urgency.
Verdict: False; Ghana did not conduct GLSS in 2015 or 2019.
Verification
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On unemployment, the President claimed the rate of unemployment has decreased from 11.9 per cent in 2015 to 7.3 per cent. While the source of data for these figures is the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) is credible, the claim is inaccurate.
Ghana Living Standards Survey
The GLSS is a household survey which provides information on the living conditions of Ghanaians. Seven rounds of GLSS have been conducted since its inception in 1987 with the most recent, the Round 7, being in 2016/2017.
The survey classifies individuals aged 15 and above without jobs but “potentially” available for employment as unemployed. The survey further calculates the total unemployment rate in Ghana by dividing the unemployed population by the labour force.
2015 Featured No GLSS
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The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) released the GLSS 6 report in August 2014. The survey covered 12 months with data collected between October 2012 and October 2013. According to the report, the unemployment rate for the period was 5.2%.
“…The unemployment rate for persons aged 15 years and older is 5.2 per cent,” page 57 of the report reads.
No GLSS was conducted in 2019.
The next GLSS, which happens to be the latest, took place between October 2016 and October 2017. The GSS, however, released the report in June 2019. The report pegged the unemployment rate at 8.4 per cent (page 90).
Thus, the figures quoted by the President cannot be from the GLSS. We can only surmise the President arrived at these figures based on further analysis of the metadata from sixth and seventh rounds of GLSS.
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Article submitted by Dubawa. Link HERE.
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