Fact check: Two claims by Bawumia on infrastructure that are false and misleading

- YEN.com.gh fact checks some claims made by Dr. Bawumia on infrastructure in Ghana

- Dr. Bawumia's claims that the NDC under John Mahama did not complete any infrastructure projects are false

- YEN.com.gh's checks indicate the Mahama administration completed a number of projects across the country

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On August 18, 2020, the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia presented to Ghanaians infrastructure projects initiated by the Akufo-Addo-led administration.

The town hall event saw the veep outline over 17,000 infrastructure projects undertaken by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) since January 2017 across the country.

Some of the projects are completed, and some are ongoing.

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Fact-check Ghana has verified some of the projects and claims by Dr. Bawumia and has described them as misleading.

Below are two of the infrastructure projects which YEN.com.gh has interrogated.

1. Dr. Bawumia, in his presentation, said the previous NDC government failed to complete a single major road in many of the regions in Ghana.

But YEN’s fact-check can say the claim by the Vice President is absolutely false and misleading, to say the least.

Rather, the erstwhile NDC government (2009-2016) completed some major road projects across many regions in Ghana.

Examples of some of the roads completed under the NDC are the Gwollu-Hamile Roads, which were upgraded in 2012, the 25-kilometers Akatsi-Dodze-Akanu (Lot1), which was completed in 2012, the 5.7-kilometer Achimota-Ofankor three-lane dual carriageway with three interchanges and service roads, which was completed in September 2012.

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2. Another claim worth interrogating is was that Ghana is now the fastest mobile money market in Africa, because of the introduction of mobile money interoperability.

This claim by Bawumia is not false, but somewhat misleading. Ghana is indeed the fastest growing mobile money market in Africa but, it is not as a result of the introduction of mobile money interoperability.

This is a position the country has held since 2017 following the publication of the Global Findex Database 2017, a World Bank data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk across the world, which is published every three years.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has slammed Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia for citing two communities and some projects said to be nonexistent in Nabdam, a district in the Upper East Region, as initiatives of the NPP.

According to the party, some of the physical projects Bawumia claimed the NPP government had initiated across the country are "ghost projects".

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Source: YEN.com.gh